Guy told me I was wasting time buzzing every single pin because I wasn't looking at the voltage drop. Now I just use a milliohm meter and caught a 0.3 ohm discrepancy on a harness that would have passed normal testing.
Last month in Denver, I had a Cessna 172 where the factory diagram said the landing gear indicator wires should be on pins 4 and 6. But when I traced it, the actual plane had them on pins 3 and 7 from a previous repair. I ended up spending 3 hours troubleshooting because I trusted the book over my own eyes. How do you guys handle it when the schematics don't match reality, do you follow the diagram or trust what's in front of you?
Last Tuesday I showed up to swap out a radar unit on a 737 and the mounting screws were stripped from the factory. Then Wednesday the weather radar display on the test bench threw a fault code I've never seen in 8 years. By Friday I had three different LRUs fail the same self test after install, and the lead kept asking if I was skipping steps. The whole week was a mess of bad batches and weird glitches that made me second guess every reading. Has anyone else had a string of bad luck like that where the parts themselves were the problem?
I was pulling a G650 through a Phase 4 check at DFW and hit 4 separate ground faults on the same LRU tray in 6 hours. Each time I re-terminated, checked the harness, and swapped the module, it still tripped until I found a tiny nick in the shield drain wire near the backshell. Has anyone else had a run of bad luck like that on a single bird?
I was on the fence about getting a Flir thermal camera for a while. Finally pulled the trigger on a basic model for around $400. My first week I used it to find a hot resistor in a power supply that was causing intermittent GPS dropouts on a King Air. That one find saved me probably 10 hours of chasing wires with a multimeter. The old method would have taken forever swapping boxes. Has anyone else had good luck with thermal imaging on bizjet avionics?
I was wiring up a new Garmin G1000 harness at the hangar in Tucson last Tuesday and my lead handed me a box of Cletop cleaning sticks for the LC connectors. I figured a puff of canned air was good enough, but after three failed continuity checks on the LRU I gave his method a shot. Anybody else ignore a specific cleaning step for years and then kick themselves when they finally try it the right way?
I bought a Tektronix TDS 220 off eBay for $200 from a seller in Arizona. Turns out channel 2 was completely dead and the calibration sticker was clearly faked. Now I'm out the money and stuck using my old fluke meter for everything. Anybody got a reliable place to grab refurbished test gear?
Always figured they were mostly hype since I'd been using cardboard for years without issues. Then I zapped a $400 comm panel last month and finally bought a proper 3M mat kit from Grainger. Has anyone else had a close call like that change their mind on something they thought was overkill?
I was working on a 737 that had an intermittent GPS dropout that had been ghosting the senior guys for weeks. Pulled the LRU, checked the coax, nada. Then I just sat there watching the rack for 20 minutes and noticed a tiny flicker on the power LED when the AC cycling kicked on. Traced it to a pin on the power supply connector that was slightly bent. Replaced the connector, 3 hours of testing, not a single dropout since. The lead tech bought me lunch and everything. Anyone else ever catch a weird intermittent by just staring at the box long enough?
Been battling faded or scratched part numbers on some 20 year old circuit boards from a King Air. Tried different lighting, magnifiers, even my phone camera zoom. Nothing worked. Then a guy at the hangar in Wichita told me to wet the surface with a drop of isopropyl alcohol and hit it with a bright flashlight at an angle. Could read the numbers clear as day after that. Anyone else got a weird trick for identifying components when the markings are gone?
He said SDRs fail in the field way more than analog Collins gear from the 70s, and after watching two FlexRadio units brick on a King Air install last month, I'm starting to wonder if reliability matters more than features for GA flying, has anyone else gone back to older equipment and regretted it or found it actually works better?
I was out at Centennial Airport swapping a KX-155 for a new GNC 355 in a 172. Everything was going fine until I powered it up and the annunciator panel stayed dark. Turns out I missed a pinched wire behind the radio stack that was grounding out the whole bus. Took me two hours to trace it with a DMM. Has anyone else run into issues with those old Cessna wire bundles getting brittle near the firewall?
I was chasing a ghost signal on a King Air radar last Tuesday in Seattle, and the senior tech just pointed at the gain setting I always left on auto. Has anyone else had a basic setting trip them up for way too long?
Last year on a Piper Archer I had to pick between a $2000 Garmin GPS 155XL from a salvage yard or a brand new com radio for the same money. I went with the GPS and paired it with my existing KX 155. That old 155XL gave me WAAS-like approach capability that saved my butt in low viz over Ohio last November. Has anyone else taken a gamble on used avionics and come out ahead?
I was checking out their avionics bay on a 737-800 and noticed every single wire bundle was tied with those cheap plastic zip ties, not lacing cord like I always use. The lead tech told me 'zip ties are faster and pass inspection just fine' but I swear they look sloppy and can cut into insulation over time. Has anyone else seen a shift away from lacing cord in big commercial shops?
He just said 'check voltage drop under load' and walked away, and after I spent 30 minutes chasing phantom gremlins it saved me having to pull the whole panel, so has anyone else had a senior tech shut them down with one simple test like that?
Spent two hours chasing a dead transponder in a 172 last week with my Fluke, pulling schematics and checking continuity everywhere. Swapped to a simple test light and found a bad ground at the tray in like 5 minutes because the light showed voltage drop that the meter missed. Anyone else find that the old school test light catches those intermittent connection issues faster than a digital meter?
Had a Gulfstream in the hangar in Orlando last month that kept throwing a weird fault on the pressurization controller. Found it after three days of chasing schematics and retesting connectors, and it was just a single pin not fully seated from the manufacturer. Anyone else ever waste days on something that was never right from the start?
I was talking to this guy who used to work avionics back in the 80s and he told me about a crash he investigated that was caused by a single loose ground wire. Said the logs showed three different techs signed off on that plane before the failure. It hit different because I realized how easy it is to rush through a sign off without double checking everything. Anyone else ever catch a mistake that could have been bad if someone else looked the other way?
I was sitting in the break room last Tuesday at the MRO in Phoenix and this guy, been here maybe 8 months, says to another tech that our job is basically plug and play because everything is digital now. I wanted to ask him how many times he's had to chase a ground loop on a King Air or figure out why a G1000 keeps rebooting at FL250. We still have to know signal flow, power distribution, and how to solder a cannon plug in a tight spot. He's never even wired a 406 ELT from scratch. Has anyone else had to deal with new techs acting like our troubleshooting is just swapping boxes?
Was standing near the break room at a regional airport last Friday and heard a quality auditor telling someone he'd flagged a harness I did on a King Air 200. He said the zip ties were too tight and could pinch the wire over time. Honestly, I always pulled them snug so nothing rattled, but now I'm second guessing every bundle I've done in the last year. Has anyone else had a QA call you out on something you thought was standard?
Was doing an avionics upgrade on a 172 at Paine Field and the brand new Garmin GMA 35c audio panel was DOA out of the box. Took me three hours of chasing wiring before I swapped it out and everything worked. Anyone else had a new unit fail right out of the box lately?
He told me he's been re-pinning connectors with a $20 hand crimper for 30 years and never had a failure, which made me question why I've been spending $400 on calibration for my fancy pneumatic one. Has anyone else found the expensive tool is just a crutch for bad technique?
Found a Tektronix 2246 on Craigslist from a guy who said it worked fine, but after testing it on a King Air 200 pitot-static system the second day it just went dark... no trace, no nothing. Any of you guys had luck repairing these old units or is it just scrap now?