few days ago i bought few (about 500) resistors and i noticed that they have 5 color bands instead of 4. My question is how do i count them (which color is the tollerence) and how should i put them? Do they have a good or bad orientation like + or – ?
I tried to use an online calculator but i dont know the first and the last band.
Best Answer
There are only two possible ways to read the resistor's color rings right to left or left to right. One of the two outer rings is the tolerance ring, the other rings indicate value. As others have stated, there is often a subtle difference in (location of) the tolerance ring, but not always too clear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_color_code#Resistor_color-coding For cheap and easy to find resistors, the tolerance ring is often gold (5%, 4 band, E12) or red (2%, 5 band, E96)
If you have no clue about value nor tolerance you can decode both possibilities and then check them against the E96 preferred numbers. The one that matches E96 is the correct value. http://logwell.com/tech/components/resistor_values.html
Of course you may want to verify the found value with your multimeter.