FIRST Robotic Competition - Training Curriculum - Electronics Color Codes

Wire Colors

FIRST Robotics uses the color standard commonly used for electronics. Note that this is not the same as the color code for house wiring!

Strict compliance with these color standards is required by the FIRST rules. Failure to follow these standards will disqualify your robot.

Numbered colors

Resistors, and occasionally other components such as capacitors and inductors will have their value indicated with colored paint stripes. If you do a lot of electronics it is helpful to have this color code memorized.

Color Digit Multiplier
Silver 1/100
Gold 1/10
Black 0 1
Brown 1 10
Red 2 100
Orange 3 1000
Yellow 4 10000
Green 5 100000
Blue 6 1000000
Violet 7 10000000
Grey 8 100000000
White 9 1000000000

For example, a resistor with the colors yellow, violet, red, gold would be 47*100 or 4.7K ohms. The gold band indicates the resistor is 5% tolerance.

A more complete description of the color code, and how to use it, can be found at http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Resistor_Codes


Last modified 4 Jan 2008
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