Pick your five band colors — 1st Band, 2nd Band, and 3rd Band for the digits, 4th Band for the multiplier, and 5th Band for tolerance — and the Resistor Color Code Calculator decodes them into your exact resistance value, plus the minimum and maximum values within your component's tolerance range.
Resistance Value
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Tolerance
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Minimum Value
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Maximum Value
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Read the colors from left to right: the first three bands represent the three significant digits, the fourth band is the multiplier, and the fifth band is the tolerance. This provides higher precision than 4-band resistors.
5-band resistors offer better accuracy with three significant digits instead of two, and typically have tighter tolerances ranging from ±0.05% to ±2%. They're ideal for precision instrumentation and professional electronics applications.
The tolerance band (5th band) indicates how much the actual resistance value can vary from the nominal value. Common tolerances include ±1% (brown), ±0.5% (green), and ±0.25% (blue).
Take the first three color values as digits, multiply by the multiplier value, and apply the tolerance. For example: Brown(1), Black(0), Black(0), Red(×100), Brown(±1%) = 100 × 100 = 10,000Ω ±1%.
Poor lighting or color blindness can make it difficult to distinguish colors. Use proper lighting, compare with a color chart, or use a multimeter to measure the actual resistance value directly.
5-band resistors typically range from 10 ohms to 10 megohms, covering the most commonly used resistance values in electronic circuits with high precision.
No, the first band of a 5-band resistor cannot be black because it would represent zero as the first significant digit, which would make the resistance value meaningless. It starts from brown (1).