Strange 5 band resistor code

[thevoice]

Has anyone come across something like this before?

I have a couple of packets of old military packaged carbon comp resistors. Their colour code is: violet, green, red, gold, yellow. They measure at about 7.9kohm.

While obviously I can measure them, does anyone have any idea how I should read them? I am curious. Google has been no help.

 

[pjp]

http://www.interfacebus.com/resistor_table.html
Its the 4th result in google for "military resistor codes".

Your question is also answered in the wikipedia page on electronic color code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_color_code#Resistor.2C_capacitor_and_inductor

5 band is usually high precision 3 significant + multiplier, but in the case of military resistors the last band is "failure rate".

 

[peranders]

Colour ring for failure rate was something new. You learn everyday despite decades in the business.

 

[pjp]

And the most reliable military resistors had a 0.001% failure rate !

But I suppose the explanation is that this dates back to the days of carbon composition resistors.

 

[thevoice]

Cheers. It hadn't occurred to me that the military would use an extra band, hence the lack of googling for that.