Talk:Electronic color code

message: The version I learned in 10th grade high school electronics class 34 years ago was "Bad Boys Ruin Our Young Girls But Violet Gives (or Goes) Willingly", which is slightly more PC but still has much of the flavor of the version you mention. It was also very popular among radio hams at the time, at least on the east coast of the USA, so I would mention it here simply because it was common.
IMHO, political correctness has no place in Wikipedia (except perhaps as the title of an NPOV article on that subject, if that's possible.) We're supposed to be descriptive, not proscriptive. If something is or was commonly used, that fact alone should be enough to merit a mention. User:Karn 24 May 2005
I'm pretty sure that the mnemonic is "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly."  Its not very PC, but my high school physics teacher (who was a woman) told it to us after class.  Furthermore, I never forgot the codes after that.  At least its not racist like the "black bastards" one is.  However, the "black bastards" mnemonic doesn't let you forget the order of Black and Brown.
:A good way to remember the order is perhaps "bAd" goes with "blAck", "bOys" goes with "brOwn" and "blUe" goes with "bUt", when using 'Bad boys rape our young girls, but Violet ..' Funktional (talk) 14:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  the version I learned 

message: Any specific reason why the "Bad Boys Rapes..." is attributed to New Jersey? I am sure the phrase was more widespread during the 70s (as this was the mnemonic taught at Michigan Tech). Sidar 06:02, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was wondering about that... will add a citation signal. 68.39.174.238 22:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have two problems with this.  One, it wasn't just used in New Jersey.  Two, it uses a matter of opinion ("tasteless" - is it really the point of this article to give moral guidance?).  I don't know much about Wikipedia or how to call for a change in that section without just doing it myself, but if anyone else comes across this article, feel free to make this note. Amada 10:16, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Don't know exactly how to change the New Jersey part. I think the preceding sentence needs to be slightly modified as well considering it makes a claim that is not exactly backed up in the article on mnemonics(the one in the mnemonics article isn't so broad.)  It seems to me that most teachers at least mention the racy ones. I am going to change tasteless to explicit though, dunno how good a change that is.66.153.117.118 18:59, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Explicit" is a good quality, and is especially desirable in an encyclopedia. Substituting the word as a euphemism for "offensive" or "tasteless" is just silly.Cuddlyable3 09:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New Jersey?

message: Some of the examples given are impure "semi-" mnemonics because they quote colour(s) literally. Thus the chastity of a female named Violet is often impugned, as is the controversial Black. Cuddlyable3 07:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Semidemimnemonics?

message: I took the suggestion of the cleanup tag and the note to editors comment, and cleaned up the Mnemonics section.  All mnemonics that remain are sourced to books (well, maybe one is just to a web page).  Let's not mess this up.  Feel free to add other iff you have a reliable source; what you remember being taught is not relevant. Dicklyon (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleaned up

message: http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/Bad+Boys+Rape+Our+Young+Girls+But+Violet+Gives+Willingly
And our collective memories are not to be totally discounted.  This sort of thing was often not written down and is part of our cultural heritage (for better or worse).  Remember, it is beer swilling Engineers that used them.
I learned this from my 10th grade electronics class teacher in 1969. It's not just some imagined phrase...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.215.15.171 (talk) 04:35, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly 

message: There is simply no reason to have all these mnemonics listed in this article.  Yes, I realize they are all sourced.  But certainly some are referenced more than others or in more prominent sources, and we should limit the article to them.  I'm not sure what it is about this section, but the desire to add every sourced mnemonic under the sun really distracts from the article. jheiv talk contribs 03:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This section is unwieldy 

message: There was no discussion about how to tidy up this section so I split it off onto its own page, List of electronic color code mnemonics.  The Electronic color code's page was mostly the mnemonic section which was ridiculous.  I'm sure there will soon be an AfD on the list page, so if you're interested in seeing these survive, please add it to your watchlist and participate in the AfD discussion. jheiv talk contribs 18:45, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section moved 

message: Is it not central idea of wikipedia to be a progressive source for information?  If we continue to propagate negative connotations, I think that there are greater harms done in the name of preserving 'the way we used to do it'. I think that we don't need to be stringent in our 'PC' analysis of articles, but at the same time, there is no service done in maintaining these acronyms... imho.Jarekanderson 01:15, 09 September 2007 (EST)
:Actually no. Wikipedia is progressive in terms of universal access and timeliness but its information is conservative and verifiable. Recording things that are notable does not make anyone guilty of "propagating negative connotations" which could mean anything. See WP:POV. BTW a mnemonic is not an acronym.Cuddlyable3 08:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Congruence with Wikipedia? 

message: The line about not including what one was taught is rather silly. I was taught a different way of doing it...at DEVRY, by my INSTRUCTORS. It's not offensive in any way and yet I don't see it listed. It's not something I can link to a book source, sorry. However I can tell you that hundreds of people who have attended Devry of Phoenix will be able to recite it back to you.
Black Berries Ripen On Yonder Gates But Violets Grow Wild  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.171.67.237 (talk) 17:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, some of us know it as "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls Behind Victory Garden Walls" and even remember Victory Gardens.--DThomsen8 (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What I was taught? 

message: I didn't know this article existed, and I just made this table for Wikibooks:
Color 	1st band	2nd band	3rd band	Multiplier 	Tolerance
Black 	0       	0       	0       	×100 	
Brown 	1       	1       	1       	×101 	±1% (F)
Red   	2       	2       	2       	×102 	±2% (G)
Orange	3       	3       	3       	×103 	
Yellow	4       	4       	4       	×104 	
Green 	5       	5       	5       	×105 	±0.5% (D)
Blue  	6       	6       	6       	×106 	±0.25% (C)
Violet	7       	7       	7       	×107 	±0.1% (B)
Gray  	8       	8       	8       	           	±0.05%
White 	9       	9       	9       	           	
Gold  	        	        	        	×0.1 	±5% (J)
Silver	        	        	        	×0.01	±10% (K)
None  	        	        	        	           	±20% (M)
it is better in some ways, worse in others.  the markup is very ugly and the colors are awful in firefox (i changed some it looks better now). streamline it if you can. and convert to pretty hex colors please. and the blank cells look ugly in internet explorer. i don't know why.  Someone should merge the best qualities of each, make them better, and put them both in this article and on Wikibooks:Electronics:Component_Identification#4-band_Axial_Resistors. Please? - Omegatron 19:44, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)
:I fixed it. - Omegatron 16:30, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
The current table in the article links to "Template:Electronic colour code," and this contains an error in my opinion.  When the color black is a significant, it should not be "-". it should be "0".  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.202.201.214 (talk) 14:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better table 

message: what exactly are they supposed to mean? Plugwash 03:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  letters in brackets in tollerance column 

message: I'm unaware of a citation, but it appears (IE this is deduction, original research, and doesn't belong on the main page), that it's preferred to write zeros on the right rather then the left when there is a choice -- that is, 100 is brown black brown, not black brown red.  (This makes sense, as it gives two significant digits rather then one.)
If somebody could find a reference for this and add it to the body of the article, that'd be lovely. 
Theorbtwo 00:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the majority of resistors have values in the E12 series which are defined by two significant digits, it would be unreasonably eccentric to "abandon" a digit exclusively for the 10.. value- Cuddlyable3 14:54, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prefer right zeroes 

message: i found inside a wireless phone a 5 band resistor thats blue violet black gold and white, wtf means the white stripe?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Minimegahyper (talk • contribs) 00:04, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  white stripe? 

message: Are you sure this sentence meaningful in the abstract : In the days of classical chassis televisions, overheated resistors would change their color bands, making it virtually impossible to distinguish brown from red from orange. 11:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence pertinence 

message: From the cited links:
* Wikipedia is not censored
* Including information about offensive material is part of Wikipedia's encyclopedic mission
* Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day
"Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article."
The history of sexism and racism in electrical engineering absolutely has valid merit, but is tangentially related to  resistors and resistor color codes.  There is already an appropriate mnemonic that doesn't include sexual violence, and a link to many others in a section specifically on the history of the resistor mnemonics, which is ideally where it belongs.  Hence, the phrase in question does not facilitate understanding of resistors when introducing historical context showing sexism in electrical engineering: the exact same subject matter on resisters can be learned the same way in the absence of this phrase.  
On the plus side, inclusion of it facilitates deeper learning, but on the con side there are many other social, economic, and cultural aspects of the resistor that are cite-able, valid information and NOT included, as they would make the article far too large, for example: impact to local economies where resistors are made due to political trends, referring to fabrication disruptions in China during the late 1990's.
In fact, the entire mnemonic paragraph could be moved to the mnemonic page, as the main page is already quite lengthy and the mnemonics are actually more about electrical engineering studying techniques than they are about resistors.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.55.55.41 (talk) 02:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: List of electronic color code mnemonics is a recent and in my opinion inappropriate WP:Content fork, created by someone who said he didn't like the material.  That's not an appropriate reason.  We don't censor by shunting off to a fork.  We should fix it.  The current mnemonic section is screwed up in my opinion, as it describes the mnemonic as "useful" and cites a random web page that doesn't even support that.  We previously had a section with only mnemonics from WP:RSs; I think we need to go back to that.  Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Mnemonics again

message: This table, although it looks like other tables, it's unique because it introduces the three columns in the left specifying the type of unit (H, F, Ohm) and one more important thing: it displays graphicaly the "real" rank given by the 3rd ring to each type of unit (BK:unit's-BN:100's-1-RD:k's-10k's-YL:100k's-GN:1M's-BL:10M's-VI:100M's), one may be mislead when looking at the power of ten given by this 3rd ring.. for the 2nd ring parameter always multiplies by "10" on top of the other.
Obviously for less than 2% tolerance, with one more ring, there is another table
--Mcapdevila (talk) 14:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I note that this table has made it into the article, but it seems to be wrong.  The table claims (for example) that red means '1k's' for resistors - except it doesn't.  It means 100's.  For example a red-red-red resistor is 2.2kohm.  Or put another way 22x100 ohms.  It works for 4 band resistance identifiers as well.  86.183.174.248 (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've removed the extra columns from the template. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:29, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Newer table

message: The 'body-end-dot' or 'body-tip-spot' system was used for radial-lead composition resistors sometimes found in very old equipment; - we should quantify "very old" - we're not talking about my 2002  1.8 megapixel camera here. I've seen body-end-dot in tube gear but when did it decline in use?  End of WWII or earlier? Or later? I don't recall seeing it in the 1960's tube-type TV sets I used to tear apart as a kid. This coding scheme was listed in my 1979 ARRL  handbook but was gone in the 1991 edition - not sure when it was dropped from the handbook.  --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:33, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm thinking the system persisted a little longer than that; none of the stuff I was allowed to tear up as a kid was that old. Your edit is there - could you have an old version cached? --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say they were used into the 1940s at least, possibly into the early 1950s. I have a fair number of these components put away in my own parts cabinets which were obtained from individuals who worked on electronic equipment in the 40s and 50s. --Tothwolf (talk) 16:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

text: According to "Electronic Classics: Collecting, Restoring and Repair" page 114 (), these were being phased out in favour of resistors with colour bands in the late 1930s, which might explain why they were still showing up in radios through the 1940s, due to existing stock and inventory. They were still showing up in hobbyist/homebrew equipment up through the 1960s. --Tothwolf (talk) 11:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: When did body-end-dot drop out of fashion?

message: i've changed the radio amateur's handbook reference to an earlier version (50th from 55th), since this version has an isbn. the page number is the same.
Alecjw (talk) 19:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Curious. The change almost makes it look like two editions, 5 edition numbers apart, appeared in the same year.  I've restored it to the edition that was evidently used to support the statement; an ISBN is not necessary. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  radio amateur's handbook reference 

message: there aren't as many resistors as examples, and the first resistor doesn't match up with any of the examples...
Ws04 (talk) 15:10, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I fixed it to agree with the figure.  I was not aware that 1% resistors had an extra digit, but it looks like that's the case based on the figure description and another example in the article; it should say so more explicitly, I think, with a source.  Dicklyon (talk) 06:42, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the Examples section wrong? 

message: In the photo showing 4 through hole "resistors", the first one (the green one) is an inductor. I'm not sure of the value because I've never seen a 5 band coded inductor.
560 uhenries +/- 2%? But there's no silver band to represent military grade.
But if its green/blue it should be an inductor.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:420:293:1262:4454:296B:98B5:3811 (talk) 02:04, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Who says inductors have to be coloured green or blue?  I have lots of resistors that are blue.  DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 14:41, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  example photo 

message: In my opinion the "green" in the color table:
# isn't green, but rather some kind of beige,
# doesn't look very much like the green on real resistors, which is something more like this or this.
Rursus dixit. (mbork3!) 23:16, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Ungreen

message: All electronic components are small - at least, any that have color coding on them. Certainly anything mounted by its wire leads is small.  Mustn't waste the readers' time. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Wordy

message: What year was the RMA resistor color code specification released by the Radio Manufacturers Association (RMA)?  We need an exact year instead of "1920s". Just a reminder that RMA created color codes for other types of parts too, so please don't get them mixed up with resistor colors.  Thanks in advance!  • Sbmeirow • Talk • 08:52, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  What year was the RMA resistor color code specification released? 

message: I am rusty on this, but the photo indicates that the resistor is:  'A 2260 Ω, 1%-precision resistor with 5 color bands (E96 series), from top, 2-2-6-1-1; the last two brown bands indicate the multiplier (×10) and the tolerance (1%).'
My color chart (I am cheating and using an App) says that is Band 1: 2, Band 2: 2, Band 3: 6.  That would translate to 2,2,x1M or 22M ohms.  Not the 2260 ohms in the caption.
I realize now that, this being a precision resistor, has three bands for the number and the 4th band is the multiplier.
None of the descriptions that I found, under resistors, explains this.
Would it make sense to have a subcategory under resistors to explain the difference between 4 color bands and 5?
: I've added a description of five-band codes for precision resistors. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resistor Picture