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The old avionics lead at my shop said never trust a connector you can't wiggle test, and it saved me a 3 hour delay last Tuesday
Honestly I used to think wiggle testing was overkill. Just plug in the box, run the BIT, if it passes you're done, right? But this older guy named Ray, been doing avionics since the 80s, pulled me aside one night and said the box will lie to you if the pins are loose. He told me to grab every cannon plug by the body and gently work it side to side while the system is powered up. Last Tuesday I had a comm radio that kept dropping out on the ramp in Phoenix, checked fine on the ground twice. I wiggled the J1 connector and the whole display flickered. Pulled the plug and two socket contacts were pushed back in the housing. Reseat job and it flew. If I had signed it off as ops check good that plane was coming back in two days with the same write up. Has anyone else had a connector pass BIT but fail the wiggle, and what's your go to for finding pushed pins without de-pinning the whole thing?
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ward.anna27d ago
Man, this hits close to home. I've been that guy who signed off an ops check good and then ate crow when the plane came back a few days later with the same gripe. Ray sounds like the kind of guy every shop needs, somebody who learned the hard way before the fancy test gear could tell you anything useful. The wiggle test is one of those things that sounds dumb until it saves your tail, and pushed pins are sneaky because everything looks fine until the plane starts shaking around at altitude. For finding them without a full de-pin, I usually grab a plastic probe or a small pick and just gently push each socket contact from the back side of the connector to see if any of them move, they should all feel the same. If one slides back easy, that's your bad one, and you can usually reseat it with the right tool without pulling the whole thing apart.
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