That $200 cable tester that saved my butt on a King Air job last month

I dropped $200 on a used Fluke cable tester off eBay and figured it was a waste until I hit a weird intermittent issue on a King Air 200. The autopilot was dropping out randomly but everything checked out visually and with the multimeter. Ran the cable through the tester and found a cracked pin inside a D-sub connector that was only making contact when the plane vibrated a certain way. Ended up saving me probably 10 hours of head scratching and the old mechanic I was working with finally stopped giving me crap about buying 'fancy toys.' Anyone else run into hidden wiring faults that basic tools just don't catch?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix_thompson41d ago

yo that cracked pin thing is real, had a buddy chase a ghost in a Cessna 310 for three days, turned out to be a loose ground wire inside a connector that looked fine til you jiggled it just right

lopez.simon1d ago

hold on, let me play devil's advocate here. you spent 200 bucks on a tool for a problem that maybe wasn't even that common in the first place. how many times are you really gonna chase a cracked pin in a D-sub? for most guys, a good multimeter and a sharp eye catch 95% of faults. the other 5% you can usually find by just wiggling wires by hand or swapping out the connector. so you spent money to save time on a rare issue, but does that really make it worth it? i've seen guys buy all kinds of fancy testers and still end up guessing at the problem because they overthink it. your old mechanic might have been giving you crap for a reason. sometimes the simplest tools and patience do the job just fine.