c/avionics-technicians

Hit my 500th connector solder joint on a single Cessna 172 panel today

I was wrapping up a Garmin G5 install on a 1978 Cessna 172 and stopped counting my solder joints after 400. Then I got curious and tallied up the ones on the audio panel, transponder, and NAV unit. Ended up at 507 total for just one panel. That felt insane because I usually lose track around 100. My hand was cramping and I had to redo three joints where the flux splattered weird. The customer asked how long it took and I just laughed. Has anyone else kept count on a big install and hit a crazy number like that?

Switched from digital multimeter to analog for troubleshooting comms gear

Honestly I was all about my Fluke 87V for everything until I had a weird intermittent squelch issue on a King KX 155 last week. The digital readings kept jumping around and I couldn't tell if it was noise or a real signal. Borrowed an old Simpson 260 from the lead tech and the needle movement made it super obvious it was a bad capacitor. Now I keep both in my bag for different jobs. Anyone else prefer analog for RF work or am I just getting old?

Tossed my Fluke meter for a Hantek... still not sure I made the right call

I do a lot of older 727 avionics bench work and got tired of spending $500 on a Fluke 87V that I mostly use to check continuity and diode drops. Picked up a Hantek 2D72 for $140 last month and it works fine for basic stuff but the rotary encoder already feels flimsy. Any of you guys using cheaper scopes on the bench long term or is this gonna bite me when I least expect it?

The way younger techs treat wire bundles drives me up a wall

I was at a shop in Phoenix last month watching a kid about 25 zip tie a harness so tight it had pressure marks on the insulation. I told him to ease up and he looked at me like I had two heads. When I started in the 90s, my lead would have made me redo the whole thing if I pulled a bundle that tight. Vibration over time can cause chafing inside the jacket. It might not fail for 5 years but it will fail. Has anyone else noticed newer guys cranking down on cable ties like they're trying to win a contest?

Can we talk about the AOA pitot probe on the CRJ-700?

I was on a gate call at DFW last tuesday when a fresh out of school A&P tried to static test the probe without checking the O-ring. He popped it loose and we lost pressurization data for the whole flight deck. My lead said "you ever see a captain go green?" That probe is sensitive as hell. Should these test procedures have a mandatory sign-off for juniors or do we just expect them to learn from busting stuff?

That USB loader tool from some random brand? Year old and still going strong.

Pro tip: That old timer who told me to trust the wiring diagram was right after all

Spent 4 hours chasing a phantom ground loop on a King Air last Tuesday before I finally gave in and followed the schematic like he said at 9am, and the problem was right there on pin 23 like he predicted.

That time a senior tech told me to 'just swap the box' and I ignored him

About 6 months ago I was wrestling with a Garmin GNS 430 that kept losing its database after power cycles. I spent like 3 hours chasing grounding issues and checking pin continuity on the tray. This old guy Ralph who's been doing avionics since the 80s walks by and says 'dude, just swap the box with a known good unit and stop overthinking it.' I rolled my eyes because I wanted to actually fix the problem not just swap parts. Finally after wasting half a day I grabbed a loaner unit from the shelf and guess what? Problem gone. The original unit had some internal memory chip failing that no amount of wiring checks would catch. Now I feel stupid for not listening sooner. Has anyone else had a senior tech give you advice that seemed too simple but turned out to be spot on?

Found a trick for reading those pesky Honeywell serial numbers

I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out the date code on a Honeywell box at the shop in Phoenix last Tuesday. The numbers were so faint and jumbled I thought I was going blind. Then a older guy walked by and said try looking at it under a blue LED flashlight. I grabbed my cheap Husky one from the truck and it was like night and day. The serial numbers popped right out clear as could be. Has anyone else run into this issue or got another trick for faded markings?

Had a hot mic during a 737 radio swap at the hangar last Thursday

I was testing a comm panel after replacing it and accidentally keyed the mic while cussing out a stuck screw. My whole rant about the idiot who cross-threaded the bracket went over the tower frequency. Has anyone else had a mic slip that turned into a headache?

Learned a wiring trick from an old Delta pilot in Atlanta last month

I was tracing a fault in a Garmin G1000 harness at a shop near PDK. This retired pilot walked over and showed me how he used a dental mirror and a shop vac to spot a chafed wire behind the panel without pulling the whole thing apart. He said "son, you don't fix what ain't broke, you just look smarter finding it." Has anyone else stumbled onto a weird tool that works better than the standard stuff?

Hot take: Took me 3 days to find a bad crimp on a D-sub connector that was hiding under the backshell boot

Spent 8 hours over 3 shifts chasing an intermittent fault on a Garmin G500 before I finally pulled the backshell off and found the pin was barely hanging on, has anyone else had a simple crimp failure take way longer than it should have because you ruled out the obvious too fast?

Stumbled on a 1980s 737 panel layout in a museum near Denver last weekend

The old round dials and analog gauges were so much easier to trace than the glass cockpits I deal with now. Has anyone else gotten to work on those older birds and find them simpler to wire?

That Tuesday shift in Kansas City changed my mind about digital crimpers

I used to think digital crimpers were overpriced junk. Then last month I had a gig rewiring a 737NG that had a ton of D-sub connectors. My old manual tool kept slipping and I crushed three pins in a row. A senior tech let me borrow his Daniels digital crimper and I finished the whole panel in under an hour without a single bad pin. Has anyone else made the switch and seen their rejection rate drop?

Debate: Should we pull panels ourselves or call the sheet metal guys?

I was working on a King Air 200 last Tuesday up in Greensboro, wiring a new comm antenna through the crown. The coax run was fine but I hit a spot where the panel screw hole was stripped out. Normally I'd just grab a rivet and move on, but the sheet metal crew had already clocked out. So I spent 45 minutes trying to gently work the panel out without damaging the flanges, using a plastic trim tool and a lot of patience. It came off okay, but I scratched the paint a little. Now I'm wondering: are we avionics guys supposed to be doing our own panel work when the metal shop isn't around, or should we just wait and lose a day of install time? I've heard both sides. Some say it's part of the job to handle small stuff, others say you leave it to the pros to avoid costly redos. What do you do when you're stuck in that situation?

Tested D-sub pin crimpers side by side and one was way cleaner

I finally got tired of my cheap crimper leaving loose pins on cannon plugs so I borrowed a buddy's Daniels HX4 to compare. Did 50 pins on a DB25 connector for a nav radio swap last Wednesday. The Daniels tool gave a perfect 6 point crimp every time while my old one had 4 pins pull out during a continuity test. Cost difference is like $80 vs $400 but honestly I'm saving up for the good one now. Anyone else deal with bad crimps causing intermittent issues?

Went to the Airbus facility in Mobile last month and saw something odd with their test harnesses

I was down in Mobile, Alabama visiting the Airbus assembly line for a training thing last month. While walking through one of the avionics bays I noticed a bunch of their test harnesses had hand written labels taped on them with electrical tape. Like numbers and letters scratched in with a marker. For a brand new facility that felt super sloppy to me. Our shop at the regional airline I work for uses a proper label maker for everything after one guy hooked up the wrong pin and blew a module. Has anyone else seen production facilities cutting corners like that or is this more common than I thought?

I finally toured the C-130 depot at Warner Robins last month and noticed something odd about the wiring harness repair station

I had a chance to visit the Robins AFB depot back in October through a family connection. Everyone there talks about how great the new automated wire testing equipment is, but I was more interested in the old manual repair bench tucked in the corner. The technician there was stripping and splicing wires by hand for a harness that the automated line supposedly already "fixed" two weeks ago. He told me they find about 1 out of 20 connections from the automated system are bad and need rework. I asked three different guys about it and they all shrugged it off like it was normal. Seems to me like the money spent on that fancy tester might have been better used training more people on the manual methods. Has anyone else seen big gaps like this between what the tech reps promise and what actually works on the floor?

That moment I stopped trusting the factory crimp settings

I was out at Paine Field last Tuesday working on a King Air panel swap. Had this terminal strip I was terminating by the book, using the exact factory setting on my DMC crimper like I always did. Pulled a wire to route it through a clamp and the terminal just slid right off the insulation. No grip at all. I stood there holding the wire and the loose terminal feeling like an idiot. Turns out that batch of terminals from the supply room had slightly thicker wall tubing than standard. Now I do a pull test on every single crimp before I button up a panel. Has anyone else run into terminal batches that don't match the spec sheet?

Put $400 into a used ID-5000 test set and it died after two weeks

Realized I was grounding avionics gear to the airframe wrong for 2 years after a senior tech pointed out my ohm reading at a shop in Phoenix

Turns out I was using the static ground lug instead of the power return bus bar, causing intermittent comm errors on three separate installs has anyone else made this same dumb mistake?

Hot take: Had a chat with an old A&P that flipped my whole view on troubleshooting

Was working a gremlin in a King Air pitot-static system down in Savannah last Friday. Old timer named Dave walked over, saw me chasing a bad connector, and just said 'you're looking at the wire, not the problem.' Hit different because he was right I spent 2 hours testing a perfectly good harness when the issue was a corroded junction block 3 feet away. Anyone else ever had a senior guy drop a line that made you totally rethink your process?

Vent: Old timer at the hangar in Tucson said something that stuck with me

I was troubleshooting a weird voltage drop on a King KX 155 nav radio last month at the shop near Tucson International. This guy, Jim, who's been doing avionics since the 80s just walked over and said "stop chasing the wire, chase the pin." Turned out I had a bent pin in the connector, not a broken wire. Has anyone else had a simple tip from a senior tech that saved you a ton of time?

Tried crimping satellite coax with cheap pliers vs a proper compression tool and man what a difference

I work on a lot of general aviation planes that have satellite receivers and last week I was struggling with a stubborn connection on a Cessna 172. I had my old $15 crimping pliers I got from a hardware store and kept getting loose fits that would fail continuity checks. A buddy who does commercial avionics handed me his compression tool from Ideal and it was night and day. The first crimp came out perfect and I didn't have to redo any of them. Those cheap pliers just don't squeeze evenly no matter how hard you try. I swear I wasted 45 minutes redoing connectors before I switched. Has anyone else noticed a big gap between budget and pro crimpers for avionics work?

Old inspector told me to stop using dielectric grease on cannon plugs

Guy with 40 years in the military said the grease traps moisture and causes corrosion over time, especially on j products out of Phoenix where the humidity spikes. Switched to dry contact cleaner only and haven't had a single pin issue in 6 months, anyone else ditch the grease?