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Vent: The old way of checking wire bundles on a Cessna 172 took forever
Back in 2018, I'd spend a full hour just visually tracing and wiggling every wire in a bundle looking for chafing. Now, after a shop in Wichita showed me their thermal camera, I do it in 15 minutes. You just run the system and scan for hot spots. The heat shows you exactly where the insulation is worn through. Anyone else using thermal imaging for this kind of work?
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brown.emery6mo ago
Our shop got a Flir camera for finding water leaks in walls. It works great for electrical too, you can spot a bad connection instantly. Saves a ton of time over poking around blindly.
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wade_hayes6mo ago
No kidding! @brown.emery is right, those cameras are game changers. I used one last week on a simple house call for a flickering light. Instead of pulling apart the whole fixture, I just scanned the junction box. Found a warm neutral splice in seconds that was just starting to go bad. It's wild how fast you can spot trouble before it turns into a real problem. That old poke-and-hope method feels like the dark ages now.
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paige866mo ago
Hold up, is a hot wire in a bundle really that big of a deal right away? I've seen plenty of wires with a little worn insulation that flew for years with no issue. Sometimes a spot gets warm just from normal current, not a short. Feels like we're fixing problems that don't exist yet. A good visual and a hand check has worked fine for decades.
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