Capacitor Color Code Calculator — 3 / 4 / 5 Band

Read left to right like a resistor. The first two bands are digits, the third is a multiplier power of ten in picofarads, the optional fourth is tolerance, and the optional fifth is voltage. Example: Brown-Brown-Orange-Gold → 11 × 10³ pF = 11 nF ±5%.

3-band: two digits + multiplier — no tolerance, default ±20% (M). 4-band: two digits + multiplier + tolerance. 5-band: three digits + multiplier + tolerance + voltage rating. Most vintage disc and mica caps use 3 or 4 bands; some mil-spec parts use 5 bands.

No. Bumblebee and tropical fish are ceramic disc capacitors with 2–3 paint dots, not rings. The dots follow the same color-to-value mapping but are not standard EIA banded codes. 'Bumblebee' caps typically have one black dot + one colored dot + a stripe — decode the dot colors as digits and the stripe as multiplier.

Used only on the multiplier band (never on first or second digit band). Gold = × 0.1, Silver = × 0.01. So Red-Gold-Gold = 2 × 0.1 × 0.1 = 0.02 pF (unusual but possible). On the tolerance band, Gold = ±5%, Silver = ±10%.

Miniaturization. Modern ceramic chip capacitors (0402, 0603, 0805) are too small for color bands, so they use 3-digit print codes instead (473 = 47 × 10³ pF = 47 nF). Larger through-hole electrolytics and films print the full value in µF directly — no decoding needed.

On a standard 5-band capacitor, the 5th band (after multiplier and tolerance) gives the rated working voltage in tens of volts. Brown = 100V, Red = 200V, Orange = 300V, and so on up to 900V for White. Pink and tint variations exist for 25V and 35V parts.

Caps with 1 or 2 digits printed are read directly in pF — 22 = 22 pF, 100 = 100 pF. This is different from the 3-digit EIA code system. Check the body size: tiny 2-digit disc caps are usually under 100 pF.

Two common reasons. First, you might have a bumblebee or tropical fish cap (dots, not rings) — check the physical marking carefully. Second, some vintage mica caps put a temperature coefficient color after the tolerance band, not a voltage — decode that as a letter code (C, E, etc.) rather than voltage.