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I bought a cheap electronics components kit(for the first time, I'm a rookie electronics hobbyist) which came with some cheap resistors with no clear written specifications.

The resistor I am looking to integrate into my simple circuit is colored blue, and it has five color bands.

I don't want to say what color band is last or first(I don't know how to determine the order of the color bands) but the two outer bands are both brown, with there being three black bands in between them, again, making a total of five color bands.

What does all this specify? Does anybody know where I can get quality resistors(that are better documented and come with written specifications) at a good deal? And if I have this problem again, can someone please supply me with links that can instruct me on how to competently decipher resistor color coding and anatomy. Thank you.

Iam Pyre
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    https://electronics.stackexchange.com/q/117974/16307 – user16307 Sep 12 '17 at 00:16
  • I also sometimes have problems exactly checking the colors (some colors look a bit similar)... easiest way: use a (cheap) multimeter to measure them. – Michel Keijzers Sep 14 '17 at 10:11
  • I'm having trouble with my multimeter right now. Resistance is accurate, but current is highly inaccurate. I replaced the battery, it made no difference. – Iam Pyre Sep 14 '17 at 16:56
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    Please add a high-quality photo showing the bands. We can then guide you how to interpret the value and hopefully show you enough so that you can do this on your own in the future. – Dwayne Reid Jan 23 '19 at 14:02

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Normally the tolerance of the resistors has a slightly farther gap than the other color bands. In the case where it doesn't have the gap i'd measure it from both sides, and use the more realistic value or make a small resistor divider to determine the resistance. You'll just have to know the value of one resistor.

There's a simple image for it. https://www.digikey.com/-/media/Images/Marketing/Resources/Calculators/resistor-color-chart.jpg?la=en-US&ts=72364a89-2139-476a-8a54-8d78dacd29ff

This calculator might be useful as well. https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/conversion-calculators/conversion-calculator-resistor-color-code-5-band

schematic

simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab

Michael Monaghan
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  • Thanks for the input. I was able to figure it out and test everything with my multimeter. – Iam Pyre Sep 12 '17 at 20:26
  • @IamPyre: When using an Ohmmeter, keep your fingers out of the circuit, as your body resistance can affect the reading for higher value resistors. – Peter Bennett Jan 23 '19 at 04:20
  • Although this is true in general, in this PARTICULAR case it doesn't matter. The bands are symmetrical, so it reads the same in either direction. – WhatRoughBeast May 27 '19 at 13:08