Resistor color code reading direction

The direction in which to read a resistor color code is often indicated by a wider band. The wider band is the last one.

If you do not see a wider ring on your resistance, you have to check the following other criteria.

Often one ring has a larger distance to the others. This indicates that this is the last ring in the color code.

But especially for resistors with five or more bands, manufacturers do not manage to print the tolerance band wider or with a greater distance. Then you have to pay more attention to the colors to see the correct direction:

Gold, silver and black are never in the first band in the standard color code structure. So if one of these colors has a band at one edge then you better read from the other side.

If you have an exotically coded resistor in front of you, this rule is not always applicable.

An exception of rule 3 is the 0 Ω resistor. It consists completely of black bands. The direction in which you read this color code is of course irrelevant.

Those who know the known color patterns often have no trouble reading a resistor correctly. The common numbers from the E-series, such as 56, 82, 12, 33, have characteristic color patterns that can be easily memorized with some experience. These color patterns determine the first rings in the resistor color code.

If you still can't determine from which side you have to read the resistor, things are getting more complicated. But there are other possibilities:

Depending on the number of rings there are colors that never appear in the last ring. This is how you can recognize the first ring. Look at the resistor color code table to see this colors for color codes with four, five or six bands.

If everything hasn't helped up to here, you can check if there is a color in the second last ring, which never occurs there. Depending on the number of rings, this is the power of ten ring or the tolerance ring. Look in the resistor color code table to find out which colors never appear there.

You have not succeeded with rule 1 - 7? Then I guess only the ohmmeter will help. Maybe you have to unsolder the resistor from the circuit. Hard work, but unfortunately this sometimes cannot be avoided. After all, you do not have to remember any colored rings.