Resistor Color Code Calculator

4-Band
5-Band
6-Band

First DigitSecond DigitMultiplierTolerance

 

A resistor is identified by its pattern of color of bands. There are 4, 5 and 6 band resistors. To calculate the resistance of a resistor, you can select the appropriate color bands in the above resistor color code calculator.

 

How to calculate the resistance?

Just have a look to the resistor color code chart below and see the calculations, how the resistance value is calculated according to this chart.

resistor color code chart

 

Calculating resistance for a 4-band resistor

4 band resistor color code

 

4 band resistor calculation formulae

 

Where,

a’ represents the 1st significant digit, which is the first band color of resistor.

b’ represents the 2nd  significant digit, which is the second band color of resistor.

c’ represents the 3rd significant digit, which is the third band color of resistor and this is the multiplier value.

d’ represents the 4th  significant digit, which is the fourth band color of resistor and this is the tolerance value.             

4-Band

Name

Description

1st Band

a

1st significant digit

2nd  Band

b

2ndsignificant digit

3rd  Band

c

Multiplier

4th  Band

d

Tolerance

 

Let’s take an example of a 4-band resistor with the colors given in the above image (brown, blue, red and gold).

So according to the formula the resistance will be: 16 * 100  = 1600 Ohms or 1.6K Ohms with 5% tolerance.