Bye bye Rosie. Off you go to Birmingham via Great Western.

This mnemonic rhyme is a good way to remember the order of the colours in the resistor colour code especially for older British people who can remember the Great Western railway.

Three stripe resistors

The resistor value is coded as coloured stripes.

The first stripe represents a number. (Yellow = 4)
The second stripe represents a number. (Violet = 7)
The last stripe represents the number of zeros. (Orange = 000)
The optional tolerance stripe represents the accuracy. (Red = 2%)

47 000 Ohms or 47 kΩ or 47k.

Four Stripe Resistors (not common)

The resistor value is coded as coloured stripes.

The first stripe represents a number. (Yellow = 4)
The second stripe represents a number. (Violet = 7)
The third stripe represents a number. (Black = 0)
The last stripe represents the number of zeros. (Red = 00)
The optional tolerance stripe represents the accuracy. (Red = 2%)

47 000 Ohms or 47 kΩ or 47k.

Colour

Shade

Number

Mnemonic

Black

  

0

Bye

Brown

  

1

Bye

Red

  

2

Rosie

Orange

  

3

Off

Yellow

  

4

You

Green

  

5

Go to

Blue

  

6

Birmingham

Violet

  

7

Via

Gray

  

8

Great

White

  

9

Western

Tolerances
(accuracy of manufacture)

Colour Name

Colour

Tolerance

Letter Code

Brown

  

1%

F

Red

  

2%

G

Gold

  

5%

J

Silver

  

10%

K

Unmarked

  

20%

M