c/avionics-technicians

That time I doubted a $20 cable tester from Amazon

I spent 8 years at a shop in Tulsa using the same old Fluke meter for everything, so when my buddy swore by this cheap generic tester for checking harness continuity I laughed at him. After two weeks of chasing a ghost fault on a King Air, I grabbed it on a whim and the thing found a corroded pin inside ten minutes flat. Has anyone else had a cheap tool humiliate their expensive setup like that?

Heard a senior tech say check grounds first, saved me 3 hours

Last month I was chasing a Garmin 430 that kept losing power randomly. I spent a day swapping trays and connectors before I overheard a guy with 30 years in the Navy say "always check the ground strap before touching anything." Sure enough, the strap at the back of the rack had a hairline crack I couldn't see. Now I start every intermittent power issue by wiggling that ground. Anyone else have a simple fix that took way too long to learn?

That $150 O-scope I bought on eBay last month worked great for tracing a faulty encoder, but I've heard the cheap ones lose calibration fast - anyone else gamble on used test gear and regret it or get lucky?

I grabbed a Rigol DS1054Z secondhand for $250 and it's been spot-on for troubleshooting a nav antenna issue, but a buddy spent $200 on a no-name unit that drifted after two weeks - which side do you fall on for used vs. new avionics tools?

Old timer warned me about cheap coax connectors - he was right

A retired avionics guy I met at a shop in Tucson told me never to buy the no-name BNC connectors off Amazon. I figured he was just being picky, so I grabbed a bag of 20 for $12 anyway. After two weeks, three of them had intermittent shorts when I tested with my multimeter - totally wasted my time troubleshooting. Had to pull all the wiring on a Cessna 172 tray and redo it with quality Amphenol parts. Any of you guys have a certain brand you stick with for RF connections?

I finally zapped a connector on a Garmin G500 without bricking it

Had a G1000 backup fail mid-flight over Wichita last Tuesday, traced it to a corroded pin in the PFD harness, and after 3 tries with the DMM I just hit it with contact cleaner and a gentle re-crimp, has anyone else had luck saving those pins instead of pulling the whole tray?

Walked into a repair shop in Phoenix that still uses old analog test gear on purpose

Honestly, I stopped by a small avionics shop off the I-10 last week and the lead tech had a rack full of HP 8903A audio analyzers and analog scopes. He told me digital all-in-one testers miss certain signal noise that analog catches for his older fleet. Has anyone else switched back to analog gear for specific bench work, or is this just old timer nostalgia?

That old timer told me to use thermal paste on avionics connectors, I laughed

A guy who used to work on F-4s back in the 70s told me to put a tiny dab of thermal paste on Cannon plug pins before reassembly. I thought he was messing with me. Last month I had a bad corrosion issue on a pitot-static panel in a Cessna 172, tried his trick on the new pins. Zero issues since. Anyone else ever do weird stuff with dielectric compounds that goes against the book?

I finally stopped using cheap multimeters after a field repair gone wrong

Was working on a Cessna 172 last Tuesday and used my $15 Harbor Freight multimeter to check a voltage drop on a nav light circuit. The thing read 11.8 volts where it should have been 13.2. I swapped it out for a Fluke 117 a coworker loaned me and it showed the exact reading I expected. Turns out those cheap meters drift badly once they get a little age on them. Looked up the specs online and saw the accuracy tolerance is like 3% on cheap ones versus 0.1% on the better brands. That difference could mean signing off a bad relay as good. Has anyone else had a cheap meter lead them down the wrong path?

Walked into the hangar Monday and a 737 we pulled the radios out of last week had all new wiring overnight

Turns out the night shift lead decided our bundle was ugly and ripped it all out to redo it cleaner. Now the pins from connector J14 to the MMR tray are running a completely different path than what I stamped off on Friday. Have you guys ever had a walk-in where a panel looked like a different shop worked on it than the day before?

Spent like 4 hours chasing a ghost voltage on a Garmin G3X install

Turned out I just had a bad ground connection on the backshell, cost me a full Saturday and $60 in test leads I didn't need because I didn't check the simplest thing first anyone else dealt with a phantom reading like that?

Finally trusted a torque screwdriver over my gut feeling on a 737 panel install

Been doing pin contacts by hand for 7 years, but that $200 Wiha driver proved my wrist was off by 3 inch-pounds every time. Has anyone else had their muscle memory humbled by an actual tool reading?

Hit 10,000 crimps last week without a single bad connection - still shocked

I was doing a wiring overhaul on a King Air 200 in Tulsa, just a routine panel swap. Got to counting my crimps out of boredom and realized I passed 10,000 without a single failure. That felt huge because I've been doing avionics for 8 years and my first year I had like a 5% reject rate on bad crimps. Has anyone else tracked their personal stats like that and hit a number that surprised you?

TIL that hot weather can mess up your avionics readings more than bad equipment can

I was working on a G1000 install on a Cessna 172 out in Phoenix last August. The ambient temp was 112 degrees and I couldn't get the pitot-static system to pass the leak test no matter what I did. I swapped out three different transducers and even replaced a section of line before my buddy suggested I just wait until dark and try again. After sundown at 85 degrees the whole system passed on the first try. Has anyone else dealt with temperature throwing off your test equipment or is this just a desert thing?

Noticed a huge difference after switching from fiberglass to carbon panels on a 737

Old lead tech told me to skip the bonding test on a King Air 200. Failed the next day.

Tom, the guy with 30 years in. Said bonding straps were always fine on that model. Skipped it. Next morning, the #2 comm had static so bad pilot couldn't hear approach. Had to redo the whole bonding check. Cost me 3 hours. Anyone else get burned by that old timer shortcut advice?

Wasted $400 on a cheap multimeter that gave me false readings

I picked up a no-name clamp meter off Amazon for like 40 bucks back in March. Used it for a few jobs, thought it was fine. Then I chased a phantom voltage drop on a 737 APU for 6 hours last week at the hangar in Phoenix. Turns out my meter was reading 2 volts low on the low range. My lead tech ran his Fluke on the same pins and found the real problem in 10 minutes. That cheap meter cost me 6 hours of overtime and a lot of frustration. Anyone else get burned by a budget meter that lied to you?

That old timer told me to check the bonding straps first and I should have listened

I spent three hours last Tuesday tracing a ghost issue on a King Air's nav display. Swapped out the antenna, checked the coax, even pulled the display unit itself. Finally my buddy Dave who's been doing avionics since the 80s walks by and says 'did you check the bonding strap on the flap?' Sure enough, loose screw on the bonding strap near the left flap actuator was causing noise. Cost me a whole afternoon because I was too stubborn to start simple. Anyone else ever waste time ignoring the basics from the old guys?

The before and after on my workbench after one week with a new label maker

I finally got one of those Brother P-Touch labelers and spent a Sunday tagging all my test harnesses and connector boxes. Seven days later I actually found a specific harness in under 30 seconds instead of digging for 10 minutes. Has anyone else seen that kind of difference from just labeling everything?

That pin 11 ground loop on Collins comms kept eating my lunch

I kept getting intermittent squelch issues on a King Air install last month, swapped three units before I realized the ground strap was sharing a pin with a nav antenna return. Has anyone else chased a phantom fault that was just a shared ground path?

Watching new guys skip the bonding test on coax cables

I was helping a trainee in Long Beach last month and he swore his cable was fine without checking continuity through the shield. 5 minutes later we found a 3 ohm reading that would have killed the signal on a 737 antenna. Why do folks think a visual check is good enough for RF work?

Why does nobody talk about using heat shrink labels on wire bundles?

Been dealing with a mess in the panels on a King Air 90 I've been working on, wires everywhere. Finally tried a thermal label maker with adhesive heat shrink sleeves last week and it made tracing circuits way faster, like 20 minutes saved per bundle. Anyone else switch to these or still stuck with handwritten tags?

I finally hit 500 harness repairs without a single rework. That milestone taught me more than my cert ever did.

Had a perfect week troubleshooting a Cessna 172 panel swap then everything went sideways

Last month I spent Monday through Wednesday replacing an old avionics stack in a 172 at KAPA. Everything lined up, no pinched wires, all the connectors seated perfect. Got the GTN 750 talking to the autopilot on the first try. Thursday came in thinking I'd breeze through the certification and the GPS antenna cable showed 50 ohms on the meter. Spent 5 hours pulling headliners and chasing a bad BNC connector that someone crimped wrong back in 2018. Has anyone else had a job where the easy part was the hard part and the hard part was easy?

Can we talk about hitting 10,000 flight hours without a single major avionics failure? Luck or skill?

I just rolled over 10,000 hours on my personal log last month working on everything from old King Airs to newer Garmin panels. For a while I thought I was just careful, but then I got to thinking about near misses. Like last spring, I had a G1000 backup battery that tested fine but I replaced it anyway because the date code was old. Three weeks later the owner sent me a photo of that battery bulging in his hangar. On the other hand, I have a buddy who swears he's made it to 12,000 hours by never touching a part unless it's actually broken. Says preventative swaps just introduce new failure points. Both of us have zero major in-flight failures. So which is it? Are we lucky or doing something right? Have you guys hit a milestone like this and what's your take on the luck versus skill debate?

Had to choose between a used Tektronix scope and a cheap new one for my bench

Last month I was setting up my home workbench and needed an oscilloscope. I could get a used Tektronix 2246 for 150 bucks from a guy retiring, or a brand new no-name one for 120 off Amazon. I went with the Tektronix figuring it would last. Its been three weeks and the CRT is a little dim but it works great for troubleshooting flight control boxes. Has anyone else had luck buying older test gear instead of new stuff?