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Thursday, December 29, 2011

How To Organize Resistors

A 4-band resistor
The common 4-band resistor has roughly 10x10x10x4 = 4000 resistance values. When given an assortment of resistors (unsorted) one might feel sluggish to organize them all. Sadly, organizing them is going to be a little on the difficult side, but a few projects later it will have payed off tremendously. Let me present to you the simplest and most effective way to sort your resistors.


THIRD BAND SORTING

Reason: the 3rd band is the multiplier, which is far more significant than any other band on the 4-band resistor.

Example! 

Resist. A: RED - RED - ORANGE - SILVER
Resist. B: BLUE - PURPLE - RED - GOLD
Resist. C: BLUE - RED - ORANGE - SILVER
Resist. D: WHITE - GRAYRED - SILVER

The true values of the following resistors are...

A. 22,000 ohms (+-10%)
B. 6,700 ohms (+-5%)
C. 62,000 ohms (+-10%)
D. 9,800 ohms (+-10%)

C is proportionally closer to the value of A than C is to B. So, I should put A and C into a baggie and label it in sharpie
"ORANGE 3rd band [*1000]."
Then I would place B and D in a different baggie labeled, "RED 3rd band [*100]."

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