Color coding of resistors and capacitors

Resistors color code.

The resistors are read from left to right.

The resistance of the illustration would be 5,1x10.000=510.000 ohms and it has the 5% tolerance.

Capacitors color code.

In this case, our capacitor (red, violet, orange, white, red) would be of 27.000 pF with a 10% tolerance and a working power of 250 volts.

There is also a code which shows three numbers and one letter.

The first two numbers correspond to the first two colour groups, and the last number corresponds to the number of zeros that are supposed to be added.

We can see it better in the following table.

The letters, which sometimes don’t appear, represent the condenser’s tolerance following the next correspondence.

The capacitor from the above photo, which is marked with “103Z” would be of 10.000 pF with a tolerance 80% above its value or 20% below of what it shows.

Sometimes, a number which has nothing to do with the tables we have seen here is directly etched over the capacitor’s body. In that case, this number is the value of the capacitor always expressed in uF.

In this case, the coma would be uF, since the value of this capacitor is 0,015 uF (0 uF 015) or 15.000 pF with a +- 5% tolerance.

In this other case, instead of the coma we have a dot, but it the same which was previously indicated by uF047 or it is just like 47.000 pF with a 5% tolerance and 250 working volts.