I've struggled over the years to learn how to interpret resistor values. In an attempt to lock the codes into my brain, i wrote a simple app. It hasn't necessarily helped me and there are doubtless thousands of other apps out there into inter-web but thought I'd share mine anyway.
Select a band to change the colour
(https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/electronics.png)
Written in Livecode and the downloads contain the .lc files for those of you who want to modify or include in your own code
Windows https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Windows.zip (https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Windows.zip)
MacOSX https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_OSX.dmg (https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_OSX.dmg)
Linux https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux.zip (https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux.zip)
Linux_x64 https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux_x64.zip (https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux_x64.zip)
cool, nice work kevin...how did i miss this. great.... 8) 8) 8)
So Kevin, you DID manage to turn a lazy enough person (aka Rob.. :icon_redface:) to an even lazier one.. :icon_wink:
indeed.....i am a lazy bstd.. ha ha... ;D
Quote from: stallik on August 28, 2018, 11:42:33 AMi wrote a simple app. ... thought I'd share mine.
Love it. Thanks!
This will be very helpful to me, thanks!
Nice work!
I've always used this one (I have a link on my desktop)
https://www.hobby-hour.com/electronics/resistorcalculator.php
But your one is a nice dedicated app... i'll try it.
Within my first week of DIY electronics I had memorized the color codes. It's very helpful when you're a slob dump all of your breadboard stuff into one box :icon_redface:
Who needs eye exams when you're capable of picking resistors from a nest :icon_lol:
I'm a little surprised to not see a tolerance checkbox. You'll have that one guy with metal film asking why they don't have a gold band :-X
-KM
I agree Kevin. This should be learned first - even before how to solder. My problem was that I struggled to do so and still do. My grey matter appears to absorb seemingly complicated data, facts and information that, after a single reading can be spewed out accurately years later. But simple things like a simple colour code sequence just won't go in.
The little app was an attempt to force my brain to look at the problem in a different way. It didn't work :(
Oh and I'm not sure I understand what you mean by tolerance check box. I thought that was given by the last band?
..and unless you are particuly adept at picking which band is tolerance (slightly wider or slightly set apart) some values in the 1% and 2% read valid (but different) values both ways. I check those with a meter.
(https://i.postimg.cc/K1W1mpst/IMG-20190829-112527.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/K1W1mpst)
I'm so lazy it ended up being less effort for me to just finally learn to read resistors via brute force. Every once in a while I get confused and either pull one out to compare or (gasp) get out the multimeter.
This is great, BTW!
Looks great! thanks!
How cool would it be to use the camera on your phone and instantly get all the right values on your app.
Hmm. Thats a good idea :)
I found it easy because I already knew the colours of the rainbow -they were drilled into me in school. So all I really had to add to the list was black 0, brown 1, grey 8 and white 9. And I remember those because 'black and brown are kinda similar' so they must go together at one end of the scale, and 'grey and white are also kinda similar' so they must go together too, at the opposite end of the scale.
Quote from: FUZZZZzzzz on August 29, 2019, 04:33:45 AM
How cool would it be to use the camera on your phone and instantly get all the right values on your app.
Such an app already exists ;)
Quote from: stallik on August 28, 2019, 04:52:31 PM
Oh and I'm not sure I understand what you mean by tolerance check box. I thought that was given by the last band?
5% has a gold band
1% has a brown band - which are usually the type to have 5 bands.
Just commenting on an idea to polish things up for people who don't know this already.
-KM
Yup, the last band is tolerance. We may only deal with 1%, 5% & 10% but there is a specification for tolerances down to 0.25% so those colours are included
Quote from: Kevin Mitchell on August 29, 2019, 10:32:00 AM
Quote from: FUZZZZzzzz on August 29, 2019, 04:33:45 AM
How cool would it be to use the camera on your phone and instantly get all the right values on your app.
Such an app already exists ;)
PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME/US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rezistr on the App store is one I tried. Unfortunately, on my iPhone, it had difficulty recognising the codes but finally reported a 100k resistor as 43M!
I'll try it on another device but it was not an auspicious start
Quote from: FUZZZZzzzz on August 30, 2019, 04:42:08 AMPLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME/US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should find them easily! I hadn't tried it (not necessary for me) but I recall seeing a few in the app market. But I wouldn't rely on it since sometimes I can barely tell the difference between a brown and purple band! Maybe it's worth checking out though. Just for the amusement.
OT; Probably seen it under electronics when I was searching for a signal generator or an RPM app to calibrate my record player.
-KM
Quote from: FUZZZZzzzz on August 29, 2019, 04:33:45 AM
How cool would it be to use the camera on your phone and instantly get all the right values on your app.
very nice! thnks!!