Capacitor Colour Code Tropical Fish

This "tropical fish" capacitor colour code is for the Philips Mullard C280 metallised polyester range of capacitors. If you still have some in an old vintage kit or some recycled ones then this article might be of help. The preferred values were available in E6, E12, and E24 series.

Calculator

Chart

The first and second bands are the significant digits; the third band is the multiplier in µF, the fourth band is the tolerance, and the fifth band is the working voltage.

Example

In the example image above, the first band is brown, which represents 1, the second band is red which represents 2. These are the first two significant digits of the value. The third band is yellow, which represents the multiplier 0.01 µF. The fourth band is the tolerance, which is ±10 %, and finally the blue band is the working voltage which is 630 V. Therefore, the value is 0.12 µF, which is the same as 120 nF.

The most confusing thing about this colouring scheme is when two consecutive bands were the same colour. Since there were no separating lines for the bands, they could be confused as a single band.