Why I hate metal film resistors!

[Joe]

I have trouble reading these too. They should have made the background color gray instead of green.

A few years ago I needed some 2W resistors for a project.. Fortunately they were all the same value, but this time the background color was blue. Ugh.

[Electric Warrior]

Yeah, the colors of the stripes are very hard to read against a blue background, especially if the stripes are semi translucent.

[rumbletone]

On a related note, do any of you use an 'auto ranging' meter for measuring resistance? Often it's not a big issue (i.e., if I already know the ballpark resistance) but there are many times where not having to find and select the range would save a ton of time - like when sorting through a pile of random resistors, which inevitably accumulates on my bench. Also, more often I find myself not relying on reading the bands -  I have no issue with the schema, but sometimes have trouble distinguishing the colors (grey, red/brown on some resistors, etc.) so I use the DMM to check my reading of the colors.

[DDD]

I am a great fun of SMD, hence I am free from hate to the color-coded resistors.
But at the same time I hate SMD capacitors since they have not any coding at all. 

[nick d]

      At the end of the day , carbon comp , carbon film , metal film , whatever - if in any doubt , you've got a DMM , use it ! It you haven't got one , you really shouldn't be doing this stuff !

[LightSoundGeometry]

they are five banded with the multiplier or tolerance i think ..I agree, the brown or neutral background is best. 4 banded carbon comps are easy to read

[R.G.]

Can you imagine color coding bands or dots on 0603 SMD resistors?

It would work fine from the manufacturing standpoint, but I'd have to get out the old B&L Stereo Zoom to see the dots. 0603s are almost invisible by themselves, let along 0201's. Yes, those exist.

Color coding comes from a time when there was no cost effective way to print numbers on parts at all, and when the parts were on the order of 0.5"/12mm or larger. Like so many things, it's a historical note that's really beyond it's "sell by" date.

[duck_arse]

when I'm doing 1206 caps, I put a diff colour dot for each value on them, while they are still in the carrier strip. note the colour/value on the schem, away we go. away might be an overstatement.

there was a time when metal film resistors were (here, commonly) either kack green or deep dark red body colour. they never used to be a problem band reading (but I don't suffer colour blindness, and my eyes were younger then).

[edit :] also, the resistors were 2%, no fifth band.

[anotherjim]

Must be 40years ago, I saw 1% resistors with body black and the value written on them - still have few in a bits tray. Odd values too, anybody need a 2.67k resistor?  I also remember colour banded 2% being common - don't suppose there's any point in 2% now when 1% are cheap.

Isn't it great that IC's always have the part number printed? Except...except it's in feckin' invisible ink these days AND it rubs off easily. Grrrr...

[Vitrolin]

SMD resistors som times have very easy numeric code or they have this alpha-numeric code withut any logic:
http://www.talkingelectronics.com/projects/ResistorsMadeEasy/SMD-Resistors-EIA-Markings.html

[Quackzed]

when your printing on a part that's  smaller than a grain of rice, it's hard to see the logic either way...

see what i did there?   

[mremic01]

Odd values too, anybody need a 2.67k resistor?

Bill Finnegan might be interested.

[Ben Lyman]

when your printing on a part that's  smaller than a grain of rice, it's hard to see the logic either way...

see what i did there?   

I had to zoom in all the way but, yes, I saw it!

[PRR]

> an 'auto ranging' meter for measuring resistance? ... not having to find and select the range would save a ton of time

Pay less (manual ranging) or pay more (range button).

Or see if your present meter has a RANGE button.

When poking 120V outlets I always put my good meter in 199.9V range. Otherwise it starts at milliVolts and chug-chug-chugs up.

I have used this for Amps. I wanted the start-up surge of a pump. The surge is shorter than the first glug of auto-range, gave stupid-low readings. On 199A range it caught the 35 Amp surge.

I hadn't tried this, but just did. Both my good "auto" meters, I can put in Ohms then tap RANGE for the several ranges.

It is a nearly-zero-cost feature for the meter-maker (mostly the cost of the button); though I suppose they save it for the higher-price models.