If you use the color code frequently enough, you don't need some mnemonic to remember values, or order, for colors.

 

I happen to have some great friends who would be offended by this as well... it's just a tool... get over it.

If you recognize that the mnemonic is potentially offensive, why place it in your signature where everyone must repeatedly see it? I understand that it works for you, but why force it on other people?

Personally, I never bothered to memorize the resistor codes, seems like a waste of mental resources. But I am even less interested in seeing a colorful sentence about ravishing young girls.

 

Heard something similar. Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly. However, I didn't much care for that poem. I preferred Black Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Grey and White. Zero through Nine.

Same way I learned the 12 tribes of Isreal:
Rubin
Simeon
Levi
Juda
Gad
Asher
Dan
Napthali
Issacar
Nebulin
Joseph and
Benjamin.

In order of birth.

Don't know what that can mean for resistor color codes, but I find just learning the details to be far better than trying to remember something someone came up with. At work there are acronyms galore. And mnemonics to remember them by. But you have to memorize the mnemonics. Why not just learn the code as it goes. Black, Brown - - - etc. Leave us bad boys out of it. And leave Violet out of it too. I'm sure Charlie Brown sees Violet as a young girl and friend, and not a sex object. Poor Charlie. He'll never grow up.

 

Heard something similar. Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly. However, I didn't much care for that poem. I preferred Black Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Grey and White. Zero through Nine.

That's the one I learned. Navy always has a way of making things memorable Seriously, that's the entire point of a mnemonic as a teaching aid to make it memorable.

Just remember: There's the Navy way, and then there's the wrong way.

Now, for some of you old bastards who think you're on par with mnemonic jeopardy, how many of you can recite the entire mnemonic that starts with 'ELI the ICE man...'

 

There's the Navy way, and then there's the wrong way.

You mean I've been doing it the Navy way all this time ? ? ?

 

Ours ended 'but virgins grow wise'!
Max.

 

I C U P ? ? ? Was that what you were looking for?

 

Eli the Ice man is awesome so is using your hand to remember the direction of current and magnetic field direction... many others. Hey if you can remember everything that's great... I can still remember what was taught after decades even when though I rarely use them... they're just tools. Why would I get rid of a set of tools... I've been told all you need is a pair of pliers and screwdriver and you can rebuild a car... eh... no thanks. I'll use my tools.

If you use the color code frequently enough, you don't need some mnemonic to remember values, or order, for colors.

I don't use it often and now that I'm using more SMD resistors... I use them even less. Most times I just look it up, but there have been times when I don't have my phone or access that this mnemonic has come in incredibly handy.


ELI the ICE Man, who lives in a cave,
Knows how inductors and capacitors behave.
Determining their phases is his favorite game.
If you ever need help, just call out his name.

 

So, who remember ELI the ICE man?

Voltage leads Current in Inductors, Current leads Voltage in Capacitors.

Oops, posted this before catching up on the thread.

 

Heard something similar. Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly. However, I didn't much care for that poem. I preferred Black Brown Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet Grey and White. Zero through Nine.

That's the one I was taught, but with the "Get Some Now" for the tolerance bands.

I'm lousy at memorizing random lists (worse than most people), so this helped. For the tolerance bands, it made sense that gold was more valuable than silver which was more valuable than nothing, so didn't need the mnemonic for that, but the ordering of the colors seemed like a random ordering that roughly went from dark to light. A couple years passed before I realized that it isn't a random list at all. It took the colors of the rainbow (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet) and wrapped them on both ends with four colors that essentially went black to white yielding: Black, Brown, (rainbow), Gray, White.

 

remember all the pointing fingers and thumb thing? Wait I won't explain it looks like gang symbols...

YES!!! It should be Get Some Now...but I really use a lot of 1% now... so not even on the color chart...

like the rainbow but we don't have indigo those colors were ROY G. BIV which I remember from art class...

 

So, who remember ELI the ICE man?

Voltage leads Current in Inductors, Current leads Voltage in Capacitors.

Oops, posted this before catching up on the thread.

I didn't hear about that one until I was in graduate school. But by that point I knew about complex impedance and so just knowing that tells you the phase relationship directly.

 

Me, I need all the help I can get. I definitely need to review some of what I think I know. Especially on reactance, but that is a different thread.

 

So, what does "get some now" stand for?

Makes me wonder if you or anyone else here has heard the entire mnemonic for ELI the ICE man...

Here it is:

Eli the Ice man is awesome so is using your hand to remember the direction of current and magnetic field direction... many others. Hey if you can remember everything that's great... I can still remember what was taught after decades even when though I rarely use them... they're just tools. Why would I get rid of a set of tools... I've been told all you need is a pair of pliers and screwdriver and you can rebuild a car... eh... no thanks. I'll use my tools.
Nope... that's not it


I don't use it often and now that I'm using more SMD resistors... I use them even less. Most times I just look it up, but there have been times when I don't have my phone or access that this mnemonic has come in incredibly handy.


ELI the ICE Man, who lives in a cave,
Knows how inductors and capacitors behave.
Determining their phases is his favorite game.
If you ever need help, just call out his name.

 

So far, no one has finished "ELI the ICE man...."

What is the entire mnemonic/limerick? I know it-- but do you. Who was ELI going to visit, and where?

 

Not that long ago I came across the word ‘CIVIL’ in reference to current leading voltage in a capacitive circuit and voltage leading current in an inductive circuit.

 

Six types of contracts that fall under the "Statute of Frauds" rule (must be in writing to be valid)... there were a lot of things to memorize in business law class... here's one I never forget...

Over one year
Real estate
Goods
Administrator/executor
Surety
Marriage

 

these are silly but back to electronics:
Splishy splashy in the sea. Power equals I times V
Twinkle twinkle little star voltage equals I time R

silly and cute, issue being the last value is easier to remember due to the rhyme... but get one wrongs and oops... so the EIR / PIE was easier to remember:

 

Oh yeah had a bunch of them in music too:

Ours were a little different

Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge - FACE
Good Boys Do Fine Always... All cows eat grass
i no longer us them... but it helps loads while learning... learned when I was about 8 and still remember them.

 

these are silly but back to electronics:
Splishy splashy in the sea. Power equals I times V
Twinkle twinkle little star voltage equals I time R

silly and cute, issue being the last value is easier to remember due to the rhyme... but get one wrongs and oops... so the EIR / PIE was easier to remember:
View attachment 183283

I've never liked those. First off, while PIE is easy to remember because it's a meaningful word, why is someone more likely to remember "EIR" as opposed to "IRE", for instance?

Second, lots of people seem to use that diagram as a substitute for being able to perform 5th or 6th grade math. Even if they "know" that P=IR they can't figure out, using math, that I=P/R and instead draw the little T diagram to figure it out. That alone is enough to fill me with all kinds of uncertainty about whether I want to have anything to do with their electronics work.