Resistors with a tolerance of +/-10% will have three color bands followed by a silver band, resistors with a tolerance of +/-5% will have three color bands followed by a gold band, and resistors with a tolerance of +/-1% will have four bands followed by a brown band. The way this works is that the first two (or three) bands represent the value, the third (or fourth) band is the multiplier, and the last band is the tolerance. So if we had a resistor with yellow/purple/red/gold we would know that it is 4.7kΩ with a tolerance of +/-5%. Likewise, a resistor with brown/black/black/orange/brown is 100kΩ with a +/-1% tolerance.

Resistor Values Used Most Often:

• 100Ω
• 220Ω
• 470Ω
• 1kΩ
• 1.5kΩ
• 2.2kΩ
• 4.7kΩ
• 10kΩ
• 22kΩ
• 47kΩ
• 100kΩ
• 220kΩ