What am I overlooking? My Viz-WD0747 multitester measures a four band resistor–Violet, Brown, Orange, Orange (the 4th band does not look gold at all)–as 330 Ohms. My other meter reads it as 523 Ohms. An online calculator give me yet a very different value.
If I read the colors from the other end, the color code indicates the resistance is 71kOhms that is unlikely, given the reading of the meters. So I have two question:
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Is there a way to determine which end is to be read firstly when the color bands are evenly spaced (not grouped at one end) and without gold or silver to show that the colors must be read from the opposite end?
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If more than one ohm meter is used to measure the resistance, and each give a very different reading, do you go with the lowest?
Best Answer
Nothing says that the final band must be gold or silver. Gold just means 5% tolerance.
So orange-orange-brown-violet is a perfectly valid code for a 330 ohm 0.1% tolerance resistor.
The other way does not result into a valid code, because orange is not a tolerance code.
One of your multimeters that resulted in 330 ohms proves it.
The other multimeter measures wrong result for some reason, like low battery. You can double-check by measuring a known resistance with both meters.