1. Find the Starting End

Place the band that is closer to an edge or has a larger gap on the right, then read from the left.

2. Read Significant Digits

4-band: use the first 2 bands.

5-band: use the first 3 bands.

Digit values:

Black 0 Brown 1 Red 2 Orange 3 Yellow 4
Green 5 Blue 6 Violet 7 Gray 8 White 9

3. Multiplier & Tolerance

Second-to-last band: power-of-ten multiplier.

Last band: tolerance.

Brown ±1 %, Red ±2 %, Orange ±3 %, Yellow ±4 %,
Green ±0.5 %, Blue ±0.25 %, Violet ±0.1 %, Gray ±0.05 %,
Gold ±5 %, Silver ±10 %, None ±20 %.

Common practice: 4-band resistors usually have ±5 % tolerance ( gold last band),
while 5-band types are often ±1 % ( brown last band).

Example: Yellow Violet Orange Gold → 47 × 10³ Ω ±5 % = 47 kΩ ±5 %.