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What does tolerance on a resistor mean?
Tolerance is the percentage of error in the resistor’s resistance, or how much more or less you can expect a resistor’s actual measured resistance to be from its stated resistance. A gold tolerance band is 5% tolerance, silver is 10%, and no band at all would mean a 20% tolerance.
Why are measured values of resistors different?
Resistors have a nominal value indicated by colored bands or other labeling. The actual (measured) resistance will vary from the nominal value due to subtle mechanical and chemical differences that occur during manufacturing. The manufacturer specifies the maximum deviation from the nominal value as a ±percentage.
How do you find the tolerance of a resistor in series?
For example: if you have 2 x 100 ohms resistors in series with 5% tolerance, and both are at the lower limit, you’ll have 190 ohms total resistance, which is still 5%. And the same goes for parallel: if you have the same 2 resistors in parallel you will have 47.5 ohm, which is again 5%.
What is the tolerance of a resistor in a circuit?
You can use the individual 10% resistor that you measured to be within 1% tolerance in a circuit that requires 1% tolerance, but if you try to use 10% resistors in large quantities to build many such circuits you will have to measure all of them and reject most of them in order to obtain 1% tolerance.
Is it better to use 1% or 10% resistors?
You can use the individual 10% resistor that you measured to be within 1% tolerance in a circuit that requires 1% tolerance, but if you try to use 10% resistors in large quantities to build many such circuits you will have to measure all of them and reject most of them in order to obtain 1% tolerance. In that case it is better to use 1% resistors.
Why are measured values of resistors different from the nominal values?
Why are the measured values of resistors different from the nominal values? All electronic components have a tolerance value in their specification. For resistors, it is specified as a plus or minus tolerance. Typical ranges are 5%, 10%, and 20%, though you can get 1% and 0.1% (matched set) resistors if you want to pay the price.
Can a resistor have the same resistance as another resistor?
The individual resistors may have the same resistance but a large sample size of 10% tolerance resistors (a box of them, for example) will not all have the same resistance and many of them will not be within 1% of the desired value.