General > General Technical Chat
Do you hate blue resistors?
SiliconWizard:
--- Quote from: hugo on March 22, 2020, 06:00:47 pm ---
--- Quote ---What I hate is identifying them.
--- End quote ---
why don't you use an ohmmeter then? :-DD
--- End quote ---
Indeed. ;D
People having issues identifying the colors can just use an ohmmeter and be done with it. From most distributors, the values are also usually marked in clear on the bags. If not, just do it when you store them and you're done. No biggie really...
These days, it's fun to know we can still read resistor codes, but it's not that useful anymore IMHO. :P
(OK, I'll admit that one case it can be useful is for identifying resistors already soldered on some undocumented board - testing them in-circuit often yields the wrong value.)
exe:
I store resistors in amo pack with a label. On label I have value, tolerance, and tempco. In addition, I always check actual value with a DMM or SMD twezers.
Motivation: I've had enough resistors with un-identifiable colors. Is this band grey or silver? is it yellow or gold? Is it the first band, or the last? May be it's even not a resistor, but inductor in a similar package. Even if I identify colors the right way, I can still make a mistake with calculating value by an order of magnitude :).
Zero999:
I keep my resistors in cases of tubes sorted into different values. I stock 1R to 10M, with 10R to 1M in E24 values and the others in E12 values.
rrinker:
One of the first things I learned as a really young player was the resistor color code. But with older eyes, and the much lighter printing of the colors these days, I just keep a meter handy, and populate one value at a time. Say my board has 12 pullups of 10K each, I'll make sure I have a little stack of 12 resistors checked to be sure they are 10K, then populate all those, then move on to the next value.
I'm still all thru-hole, with my vision issues, SMD is just not in the cards. Magnification is not the problem - I have very limited vision in my right eye so depth perception is off. At least with TH, it's something I am extremely familiar with and I can find the spot to solder - haven't burned a finger yet, or my nose (you don't want to watch me solder...really). I notice this more and more - things I am familiar with, it's as if my depth perception has not altered. Amazing how the brain can compensate. But something unfamiliar - I'll miss the mark a time or two.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on March 23, 2020, 04:19:44 pm ---(OK, I'll admit that one case it can be useful is for identifying resistors already soldered on some undocumented board - testing them in-circuit often yields the wrong value.)
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's the main reason for the colour band, although they're no good if the resistor has overheated and become discoloured.
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