Graphical Resistor Colour Band Tool

stallik · August 28, 2018, 11:42:33 AM

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

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
MacOSX https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_OSX.dmg
Linux https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux.zip
Linux_x64 https://www.stallibrass.com/downloads/electronics/Electronics5_Linux_x64.zip

deadastronaut · August 23, 2019, 05:31:38 AM

cool, nice work kevin...how did i miss this. great....

antonis · August 23, 2019, 05:46:35 AM

So Kevin, you DID manage to turn a lazy enough person (aka Rob..

) to an even lazier one..

deadastronaut · August 23, 2019, 05:57:15 AM

indeed.....i am a lazy bstd.. ha ha...

tubegeek · August 24, 2019, 12:17:35 AM

Quote from: stallik on August 28, 2018, 11:42:33 AMi wrote a simple app. ... thought I'd share mine.

Love it. Thanks!

strungout · August 28, 2019, 10:58:47 AM

This will be very helpful to me, thanks!

Ben N · August 28, 2019, 02:12:40 PM

Nice work!

bettsaj · August 28, 2019, 03:45:28 PM

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.

Kevin Mitchell · August 28, 2019, 04:03:11 PM

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

Who needs eye exams when you're capable of picking resistors from a nest

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

-KM

stallik · August 28, 2019, 04:52:31 PM

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?

Rixen · August 28, 2019, 07:39:45 PM

..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.

bean · August 28, 2019, 08:00:54 PM

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!

FUZZZZzzzz · August 29, 2019, 04:33:45 AM

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.

stallik · August 29, 2019, 09:16:23 AM

Hmm. Thats a good idea

merlinb · August 29, 2019, 10:20:26 AM

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.

Kevin Mitchell · 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

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

stallik · August 29, 2019, 11:40:24 AM

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

FUZZZZzzzz · August 30, 2019, 04:42:08 AM

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stallik · August 30, 2019, 07:08:36 AM

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

Kevin Mitchell · August 30, 2019, 12:23:22 PM

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

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Graphical Resistor Colour Band Tool