Resistor Colour Code Flashcards

Resistor Colour Code flashcards — the free 27

Every question and answer on the free cards, written out. Check them against your own textbook before you spend anything.

Black

Digit 0 — multiplier ×1; no tolerance meaning

Brown

Digit 1 — multiplier ×10; tolerance ±1%

Red

Digit 2 — multiplier ×100; tolerance ±2%

Orange

Digit 3 — multiplier ×1 k; tolerance ±0.05% (IEC 60062:2016)

Yellow

Digit 4 — multiplier ×10 k; tolerance ±0.02% (IEC 60062:2016)

Green

Digit 5 — multiplier ×100 k; tolerance ±0.5%

Blue

Digit 6 — multiplier ×1 M; tolerance ±0.25%

Violet

Digit 7 — multiplier ×10 M; tolerance ±0.1%

Grey

Digit 8 — multiplier ×100 M; tolerance ±0.01% (IEC 60062:2016)

White

Digit 9 — multiplier ×1 G; not a tolerance colour

Gold

Not a digit — multiplier ×0.1; tolerance ±5%

Silver

Not a digit — multiplier ×0.01; tolerance ±10%

No fourth band at all (3 bands only)

Tolerance ±20% — the widest grade; the two digits and multiplier are read as usual

4-band resistor — what is each band?

Digit, digit, multiplier, tolerance — 2 significant figures

5-band resistor — what is each band?

Digit, digit, digit, multiplier, tolerance — 3 significant figures

6-band resistor — what does the extra band add?

The 5-band reading plus a sixth band: temperature coefficient, in ppm/K

Which end of the resistor do you read from?

From the end whose band is nearest a lead — the tolerance band is the wider one, at least 1.5× the others

Which colours are never a digit band?

Gold, silver and pink — gold and silver serve as a multiplier or a tolerance, pink only as ×0.001

What does the multiplier band do?

Multiplies the digits by its power of ten — orange = ×1 k, so digits 47 give 47 kΩ

Which standard defines the resistor colour code?

IEC 60062 — Marking codes for resistors and capacitors; it covers value, tolerance and TCR

4-band: brown, black, red, gold

1 kΩ ±5% — digits 10, ×100

4-band: yellow, violet, orange, silver

47 kΩ ±10% — digits 47, ×1 k

4-band: orange, orange, brown, gold

330 Ω ±5% — digits 33, ×10

4-band: green, blue, gold, gold

5.6 Ω ±5% — digits 56, ×0.1

5-band: brown, green, black, red, brown

15 kΩ ±1% — digits 150, ×100

5-band: red, red, black, gold, brown

22 Ω ±1% — digits 220, ×0.1

4-band: blue, grey, brown, gold

680 Ω ±5% — digits 68, ×10

Resistor Colour Code flashcards — questions people ask

How many cards are in the Resistor Colour Code flashcard deck?

The Resistor Colour Code deck on PuzzlePage has 27 cards, and all 27 are free to play and free to download with no account and no payment. 27 cards. There are exactly ten digit colours (black 0 to white 9), two more colour cards for gold and silver, and one 'no band' case — thirteen cards. Pink is also never a digit (it is the ×10⁻³ multiplier in IEC 60062:2016) and is named on the never-a-digit card rather than getting a card of its own. The other fourteen are the seven band-order and reading rules for 4-, 5- and 6-band parts and seven worked readings that between them exercise every rule. Further examples would only repeat the same thirteen facts, so the deck stops.

What is on the resistor colour code flashcards?

The IEC 60062 resistor colour code: what each colour means as a digit, as a multiplier and as a tolerance, and how 4-, 5- and 6-band resistors are read. Cards look like this: Black → Digit 0 — multiplier ×1; no tolerance meaning; Brown → Digit 1 — multiplier ×10; tolerance ±1%. The deck is written for grades 9–12 and filed under career, tech & modern.

Can I study resistor colour code flashcards online for free?

Yes. All 27 cards of the Resistor Colour Code deck play free in any web browser at puzzlepage.app, with no account, no app and no card details. It works on a phone, tablet, Chromebook, laptop or classroom projector. Practice mode flips through the cards with nothing scored; quiz mode makes you answer each card before it flips, times the run and scores it.

Are the resistor colour code flashcards accurate?

Every card in the Resistor Colour Code deck cites two independent published sources — two different organisations, not a standards body and a site reprinting it — and a script checks that, rather than taking the writer's word for it. A second specialist then re-verified the deck against sources of their own, without reading the citations first. That is the difference from a user-generated flashcard site, where the cards are whatever a stranger typed and nobody is accountable for them.

Can I print the resistor colour code flashcards?

Yes. The Resistor Colour Code cards are available as a printable double-sided PDF to cut up, as well as playable in the browser. The whole 27-card printable is free to download, with no account.

How should I use the Resistor Colour Code deck to revise?

Start in practice mode and go through the Resistor Colour Code deck once without scoring, to find out which cards you already know — the deck is dealt in a different order every time you open it, so you are recalling the card rather than its position. Then switch to quiz mode, which times and scores the run and lets you re-run only the cards you missed. Use the "flip deck" control to swap which side is the question: recognising an answer is much easier than producing one, so a deck you find easy one way round is usually the harder and more useful drill the other way. Two or three short sessions across a week beat one long one, which is the whole reason flashcards work.

What grade level are the resistor colour code flashcards for?

The Resistor Colour Code deck is written for grades 9–12. Because the cards are plain term-and-answer pairs, they are also used outside that band — by adults revising career, tech & modern, and by teachers running them as a whole-class starter on a projector.