Why Do Resistors Have A Color Code?

One of the first things you learn in electronics is how to identify a resistor's value. Through-hole resistors have color codes, and that's generally where beginners begin. But why are they marked like this? Like red stop signs and yellow lines down the middle of the road, it just seems like it has always been that way when, in fact, it hasn't.

Before the 1920s, components were marked any old way the manufacturer felt like marking them. Then in 1924, 50 radio manufacturers in Chicago formed a trade group. The idea was to share patents among the members. Almost immediately the name changed from "Associated Radio Manufacturers" to the "Radio Manufacturer's Association" or RMA. There would be several more name changes over the years until finally, it became the EIA or the Electronic Industries Alliance. The EIA doesn't actually exist anymore. It exploded into several specific divisions, but that's another story.

This is the tale of how color bands made their way onto every through-hole resistor from every manufacturer in the world.

By the late 1920s, the RMA was setting standards and one of them was the RMA standard for color-coding. The problem was that marking small components is difficult, especially back in the 1920s.

The solution was color bands, but not quite as we know them today. The standard for colors was the same, but the body of the resistor acted as the first band. Then there would be two or three other bands to show the rest of the value. In some cases, the third band was actually a dot. So the bulk of the resistor would be the first band color. The "tip" of the resistor would be the 2nd band and a dot would be the multiplier. Radios using this scheme started to appear in 1930. Here's the color code chart from the 1941 Radio Today yearbook:

Ads in that magazine promoting resistors were careful to note that they were RMA color-coded. The code soon extended to capacitors (condensers, in the contemporary parlance).

The dot, as with printed piece of text on the cylindrical, might be hidden from view depending on the position of the resistor. So eventually, everyone switched to bands.

The colors are meant to follow the visible spectrum (remember ROY G BIV?). However, the RMA omitted indigo because apparently many people don't distinguish blue, indigo, and violet as three different colors; indigo is really a tertiary color, anyway and Newton included it because of his interest in the occult, apparently. That leaves four slots, so dark colors represent the low end (black and brown) and bright colors the high end (gray and white).

Of course, none of this was funny if you were color blind. Reading a resistor with a meter or a bridge out of the circuit was certainly an answer. Reading one in a circuit, though, was another matter.

In 1952 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC, another standards group) defined the E-series which dictates what values resistors come in so that you get equal spacing on a log scale for resistors. If that sounds confusing, consider an example.

The E12 series is for 10% resistors and the values on it give you 12 values per decade. The base values are

That's why you can get, say a 4.7 K or 47 K resistor but not a 40K resistor.

However, consider the tolerance. A 10% 39 K resistor could be off by 3.9 K. If the error pushed the resistance up that would be 42.9K, making a 40 K resistor unnecessary. That is, a 39 K resistor might well be a 40 K resistor, anyway. A low 47K resistor, on the other hand, could be 42.3 K, which is less than a high-value 39 K unit.

As you might expect, the number of values goes up as the tolerance goes down. At 2%, for example, you’ll use E48 which has 48 values per decade (if you’d guess E96 — the standard used for 1% has 96 values, you’d be right). Using E48, the values near 40 K are 38.3 K and 40.2 K. That's 39.06 on the high side and 39.2 on the low side.

Next time you pick up a resistor and read the code from it, you can recall the history behind it all. The legacy of color bands carries over into the surface mount realm, not as color but as three digits representing the first two numbers and multiplier for the resistor's value. These days many electronics like wireless modules and lithium batteries include a datamatrix (something like a QR code) on them. Honestly, I’m surprised that all components — through hole and surface mount — don't have some form of micro data matrix on it that lets you point your phone at them and see their complete datasheet. Maybe one day.