I learned a sexist mnemonic, not a racist one.
I learned having partial colourblindness is not as much fun as originally advertised. (colour confusion is often a better description to my experience.)
Tangentially, anyone know a good resource (android app or otherwise) that assists in proper identification of resistors by colour code? Say by using the camera rather than trying to match the colours which I canât to reliably? Currently I get around this by testing each resistor with a multi-meter and placing in an appropriately marked bin. And testing again on retrieval, and once more to make sure. And again later when the circuit doesnât work as expected 
Otherwise⌠Yay! Games for learning!
I wish there was a SMT Resistor color code app.
Post your racis sexist mnemonics please 
I didnât know there were any that werenât bothâŚ
When my father taught me electronics, he made a point of laughing and saying our mnemonic was rude and offensive and shouldnât be spoken aloud anywhere it might be misunderstood.
If I knew a really funny mnemonic, I could probably remember it, but Iâm not going to remember anything insipid. The offensive one I know is very memorable precisely because of its offensiveness.
My father had the decency to not teach me the mnemonic, just the color code. I learned the mnemonic much later, in college.
Interesting choice of words. Most people whoâve actually met him seem to think Dadâs a pretty decent guy.
Your Google led me to this cool method: http://makezine.com/2011/10/27/nail-polish-resistor-value-mnemonic
Me, I think itâs much better to actually learn the mnemonic (making your brain better), rather than learning to rely on an Apple app on your iPhone (making your brain worse). Jeepers.
The problem with the usual mnemonics (and I learned the less offensive of the sexist versions, âBad boys robâŚâ) is that you have to either count thru the whole thing, or just use it to write out the table and then use the table.
Thereâs a better set of mnemonics, which alas I havenât memorized, which maps directly from color to number and thus doesnât have the ordering problem. I remember one of its tricks was pronouncing âBrownâ as âBrow-oneâ; I donât recall the others.
The best answer, though, is to just sit down with a set of flashcards and memorize the correspondences. Itâs no harder than learning your times-tables was. Of course we forget just how much work we put into that.
I always just dropped indigo and added the four others to the good old âroy g bivâ. Easy enough to remember black/brown and grey/white as additions, and why memorize a whole sentence as a mnemonic when the initials are pronounceable and are usually taught to kids with the various songs about rainbows?
The tough part for me is when the colors used are so variable that some of them start to look the same. The red and blue colors used always seem to be so light that itâs difficult to tell them from orange and violet.
Black Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly - Get Some Now!
I personally like this one from Wikipedia: Better be right or your great big venture goes west
As I say, I first heard it (1970âs) with âBad boys robâ, and without the suffix. (Which, frankly, strikes me as backward and dubiously necessary since itâs such a small set.) Still sexist, but less offensive.
I actually didnât know about the Black/Rape version until someone objected violently to my quoting the more acceptable version. Apparently they believed I was bowdlerizing on the fly and really thinking the nastier form. Sigh.
âThe problemâs all inside your head,â said my T.A.
âThis homeworkâs easy, if you think in the right way
Iâd like to help you in your struggle for an A
There must be ⌠fifty ways to solve your circuitâ
âŚ
â AAAA and the Six Pistols, All Tech Sing contest, circa 1980
(to the tune of â50 Ways to Leave Your Loverâ, in case that isnât obvious)
I do like the Wikipedia alternative. Only quibble I have with it is that the two Bâs donât have a built-in clue as to which is which; the old monstrosity does tie the A to blAck and O to brOwn. If you donât need the reminder of which is which, you probably donât need the mnemonic.
Yeah, I donât even bother with the color codes since many resistors are so badly printed you canât tell whether youâre looking at brown, orange, or yellow, especially when the body is a similar color. I know the value from looking at the label on the bag or bin I just picked it out of, or with a meter if it was just laying around loose. Whoâs doing anything involving resistors without an ohmmeter at hand anyway?
Just remember, folks, a 10% resistor should be assumed to be at least 5% out of spec, and a 5% resistor will be at least 1% out of spec â because these are sorted out after manufacturing, and if they could put it in the more expensive bin they would have.
Luckily, for most applications, 10% tolerance is Just Fine.
Black Brown, EM spectrum, Grey White. In many ways it is symmetric. You just have to remember not to say that stupid color âindigoâ when counting up.
Iâm reminded of something that happened to me in fourth grade. At some point in class, during a discussion on a book Iâve long forgotten, our somewhat young teacher Ms. Coombs asked the class, âDoes anyone know what SNAFU means?â I raised my hand. She asked, âWould you tell us?â I froze, appalled, not believing she actually wanted me to say such a thing out loud. I ended up stammering that I couldnât quite remember. She gave me an encouraging smile, feeding me the words: âSituation⌠Normal⌠All Fouled Up.â
I took a deep breath. Iâd honestly never heard anyone use âFouledâ as that particular F-word. I began to doubt sheâd ever been in the service.
As one of my co-workers pointed out, youâd think in the year 2013 weâd have the tech to print the number on the resister and stop with the arcane color system. Other components just have the numbers printed on them
