Worked examples

Check the roles before the number

These examples interpret manually selected names using the declared Vishay reference table. They do not identify a physical resistor, choose its reading direction or verify its actual resistance. Written role labels accompany the approximate colored diagram.

The four-band default

Choose yellow, violet, red, gold. The two digits are 4 and 7. Red is the multiplier ×100, so nominal resistance is 4700 Ω. Gold means ±5% in this table. Five percent of 4700 is 235, giving exact lower and upper arithmetic bounds of 4465 and 4935 Ω.

Three digits in five-band mode

Choose brown, black, black, red, brown. Digits 1, 0 and 0 form 100. Red multiplies by 100, giving 10000 Ω. Brown marks ±1%, so the interval is 9900 to 10100 Ω. In four-band mode, a hidden third-digit control is ignored; the active role labels show the difference.

A smaller integer value

Red, violet, brown, gold in four-band mode means 27 × 10 = 270 Ω. Gold's 5% is 13.5 Ω, yielding 256.5 to 283.5 Ω. The decimal endpoints are exact rather than rounded to whole ohms.

A gold fractional multiplier

Blue, gray, gold, red uses digits 68 and multiplier 0.1, giving 6.8 Ω. Red marks 2%, or 0.136 Ω. The interval is 6.664 through 6.936 Ω. Gold here is a multiplier because of its position; it is not the tolerance band.

A silver fractional multiplier

Yellow, violet, silver, gold gives 47 × 0.01 = 0.47 Ω. The marked 5% interval is 0.4465 to 0.4935 Ω. Every number is calculated with exact integer scaling, so small values are not silently rounded to zero.

A precise five-band marking

Green, blue, gray, black, violet means 568 × 1 = 568 Ω with 0.1% marked tolerance. Its interval is 567.432 to 568.568 Ω. This does not predict the value an instrument would measure; it is the selected marking's arithmetic interpretation.

The declared gray tolerance

White, white, white, white, gray gives 999 × 1,000,000,000 = 999,000,000,000 Ω, with gray meaning 0.05% in the named table. The exact interval is 998,500,500,000 to 999,499,500,000 Ω. This boundary case tests arithmetic size, not component availability.

The low boundary

Brown, black, silver, gray gives 0.1 Ω and 0.05% marked tolerance, with interval 0.09995 to 0.10005 Ω. A leading black first significant band is outside this tool's subset. Changing any active band clears the old result until you decode again; reset restores the default.