Last week I was down at the hangar at BWI helping a buddy trace a weird intermittent fault in a G1000 display. Spent maybe 3 hours swapping boxes, checking pins, pulling hair out over nothing. Finally one of my guys on the crew back home called and said hey did you check the D-sub backshell on the harness we made last month. Sure enough I found one pin that had a cold crimp that was barely holding. Honestly I always thought I was pretty careful with my crimpers but that little mistake cost us half a day of labor. Has anyone else had a tiny crimp issue turn into a massive headache or do I just need to upgrade my tools?
I used to think the $40 Knipex automatic strippers were a waste compared to my $8 pair from the hardware store. Then I had to strip 50 wires on a 737 harness last week and finished in half the time without nicking a single conductor. Has anyone else switched to a tool they thought was overhyped and ended up loving it?
I was flying a Cessna 172 out of a small field in Ohio and suddenly the GPS signal dropped completely. The unit was showing no satellites for about 10 minutes before I switched to the backup. Turned out the antenna cable had a corroded connector under the fairing. I ended up replacing the whole antenna assembly that afternoon. Has anyone else had a weird intermittent failure like that where the wiring looked fine at first?
I was digging through that Honeywell service bulletin last night and found out that 73% of LRU returns they test come back as 'no fault found'. That means almost 3 out of every 4 boxes we yank and ship are perfectly fine. Makes me wonder how much time we waste chasing ghost squawks. Any of you guys ever push back on a pilot when you know it's just a connector issue or a bad ground?
Been using a $40 Klein meter for about 2 years on smaller jobs. But last month I had to trace a intermittent fault on a King radio unit in a Cessna 172. The Klein kept giving me jumpy readings on the AC voltage setting. Borrowed a Fluke 87V from a senior tech and got stable readings in 5 minutes. Dropped $450 on my own Fluke 87V last week and it's already paid off on a wiring harness test. The accuracy difference is night and day for avionics work. Anyone else switch brands after fighting with a tricky fault?
I spent two hours re-pinning a connector with an old screwdriver and a paperclip before a buddy handed me a real kit - took 4 minutes after that. Anyone else think the cheap way is a setup for failure, or am I just slow?
I was working on a connector at the bench last Tuesday when this apprentice comes over and says that about a 25-pin D-sub we were fixing. He was about to just jam the pins in without checking the layout diagram. I stopped him and showed him the pinout sheet, but it got me thinking about how many folks skip the basic steps on connector repairs. Has anyone else seen corners get cut on D-subs or cannon plugs that came back to bite someone?
Last week I was redoing a connector on a King radio at the hangar in Burbank and noticed the pin kept slipping. Grabbed a mic and checked the crimp height, turns out my old Snap-On tool was worn down that tiny bit. Anyone else ever troubleshoot bad crimps with a multimeter before finding the real issue?
Spent 2 days tracing a intermittent ground fault on a King radio stack before I remembered the old megger trick. Hit it with 500V insulation tester and found a cracked pin in the backshell in 10 minutes. Anyone else keep forgetting to break out the big stuff for intermittent faults?
I saw three guys at the MRO in DFW last month slathering dielectric grease on ARINC 600 connector pins thinking it prevents corrosion. It actually traps moisture and causes intermittent signal loss. Has anyone else had to re-pin a whole tray because of this?
Was over at a buddy's bench in Denver watching him work and he casually goes 'you know those pins are supposed to click twice, right?' I'd been doing single crimps and then wondering why half my harnesses had intermittent shorts. Anyone else had that moment where you realize you missed something super basic from day one?
I was out at KPDK last Friday troubleshooting a Garmin G600 that kept showing a 0.2 dot glideslope offset on approach. The shop manual said check the antenna cable but we had already replaced it twice. Turns out the coax was pinched under a seat track rail from a previous install, just enough to shift the signal a tiny bit. I pulled the floor panel, rerouted the cable with some adhesive clamps, and now it holds steady through the whole ILS. Has anyone else found weird RF issues from hidden cable damage like this?
I was tracing a bad pitot static line on a 737 at KLAX and my old multimeter was giving me ghost readings. Bought the Fluke 787 from Grainger for $600 and found the break in 10 minutes. That thing paid for itself in one job. Has anyone else had luck with one of these or do you stick with cheaper meters?
I used to think all those warnings about being careful with D-subs were overblown until I had to pull a 62-pin connector off a Garmin G500H in a Bell 407 last month. Found three bent pins that were causing intermittent attitude failures that had been written up five times. Now I always use a pin alignment tool and check every row before mating - saved me from chasing a gremlin for days. Anyone else run into this on their builds?
I used to swear by spraying contact cleaner on every cannon plug I touched until I worked on a 737 at KMTN last March. A senior tech watched me drench a connector and said I was just pushing dirt deeper into the pins. He was right - I had been troubleshooting intermittent faults that were my own doing for years. Has anyone else had a mentor call them out on something they thought was standard practice?
Turns out it was a tiny break in a shielded wire behind the radio stack that only showed up when the plane hit a certain vibration frequency. Has anyone else dealt with intermittent faults that refuse to show on the bench?
I was doing a routine inspection on a King Air 200 in Wichita and found a bundle of wires chafed nearly through behind the avionics bay panel. A small zip tie had shifted over time and was rubbing against the harness, could have caused a short in flight. Has anyone else caught weird wear like that on older airframes?
I finally caved and tried that anhydrous lanolin spray a senior guy from Delta recommended after I spent an afternoon chasing a intermittent fault on a CRJ-900 that was just a pin with caked up grease causing no continuity, and now I can't believe how much time I wasted cleaning messes off terminal blocks for nothing.
Last month I replaced all the ancient RG58 cables in a Cessna 172 with some new RG400 stuff. The signal loss on the VOR dropped from about 3 dB to under 1 dB after the swap. Has anyone else seen that big of a jump just from changing cables?
He said a half inch is fine between signal and power cables and I just walked away thinking about how many intermittent faults we'll be chasing in a year from that panel - has anyone else seen shortcuts like this actually cause real failures?
I was tracing a power issue on a 1990s King Air last week and the old paper pinout showed pin 7 as ground, but the digital revision says it's a data line. Tbh I've seen digital updates that were supposedly corrected by the manufacturer actually introduce more errors than the originals. Ngl, I lean toward the paper ones unless I can verify three different sources. Which camp are you in when the two conflict?
My old fluke finally died after 10 years so I had to pick... either spend $1200 on a used bench tester from a guy in Phoenix or get a new handheld meter for $400. I went with the bench tester because I do a lot of component-level board repair on older comms stuff. So far it's been solid but man it takes up half my bench space. Has anyone else swapped from handheld to bench and regretted the extra clutter?
Had a guy with 30 years in avionics watch me terminate a shielded line on a King KX 155 install. He said 'you're crushing the dielectric, son' and showed me how to solder the drain wire instead of crimping. Switched my method after that and my noise issues dropped way off. Anyone else run into old school soldering tricks that still beat modern crimp tools?