TIL my old coax crimper was causing intermittent signal loss on a Cessna 172

Had a talk with a senior tech out of Oshkosh last week. He looked at my work and asked about my crimper. I showed him the cheap one I've had for years. He said 'that tool is why you've been chasing ghosts.' Turns out the die was worn just enough to make connections that looked good but tested bad. He let me borrow his Snap-on crimper and re-did three connectors. All passed with 0.5 dB loss. My old ones were all over the map. Made me wonder how many other guys are out there fighting bad crimpers without knowing it. Has anyone else had a simple tool cause a headache like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

wade_kelly774d agoTop Commenter

Bet your ass I've been there. Found out my old coax stripper was leaving nicks in the center conductor on RG400. Looked fine under a mag light but a buddy with a proper micrometer showed me the damage. Those little cuts turned into impedance mismatches that only showed up at higher frequencies. Replaced it with a Paladin tool and suddenly my VSWR sweeps looked clean as a whistle. Whole fleet of planes had connectors that were technically "good" but inconsistent as hell. Sometimes the cheap tool tax is worse than just buying the right one from the start.

lucast814d ago

Honestly @wade_kelly77, I gotta push back a little. Those Paladin tools are nice but overkill for most field work, a decent $30 stripper with replaceable blades does the same job if you check it every few builds. Ngl, I've seen guys blame the tool when the real issue was they were rushing the prep or using a worn die in the crimper. Tbh, "technically good" connectors usually pass just fine unless you're pushing past 18 GHz, and most fleet ops aren't doing that.

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