Name : _______________________________
Date : __________________
Resistor Measurement Worksheet
This activity will give you some practice identifying resistors from their colour codes, and some practice using the
digital multimeter to measure resistance. You will also calculate the percent error between the theoretical value of the
resistance (from the colour code chart) and the actual resistance you measure with the multimeter. For a resistor with a
gold coloured tolerance band, this error should always be less than ± 5%.
To complete the chart below, you need to pick 6 different resistors from your kit, then follow these steps (the first row
is completed as an example) :
1. Record the resistor's colour codes. The last colour is always gold. In our example the colour codes are
“Yellow Violet Red Gold”
2. Using the Resistor Colour Code Chart, find the theoretical or expected resistance and record on the table. In
the example, it would be Yellow (4) Violet (7) Red ( x 100Ω), and Gold (± 5%). So the expected value is
4700Ω, or 4.7kΩ.
3. Looking at your multimeter, pick the lowest range that is still large enough to measure the value you expect.
We would choose 20k because 2000 is too small to measure 4700, and 20k (or 20000) is the next range
higher, and it is big enough.
4. Now, set your multimeter to the selected range and measure the actual resistance. Record on the chart. We
measured 4.67kΩ (compared to the expected value of 4.7kΩ).
5. Calculate the percent error using the formula
measured value−expected value
×100
expected value
4.67−4.7
×100 , or -0.6%
For our example, the error is
4.7
percent error =
This is well within the allowable ± 5%.
Resistor Colours
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Yellow Violet Red Gold
Theoretical Value
(from Colour Code
Chart)
4700Ω or 4.7kΩ
Range
(setting on
Multimeter)
20k
Measured Value
% error
(from theoretical)
4.67kΩ
-0.60%