c/avionics-technicians

Found a whole family of mice living in a 737's avionics bay in Anchorage

They'd chewed through a main comms bundle, so I spent three hours splicing wires while the mom mouse watched me from a corner. Anyone else ever had to deal with wildlife as a primary fault cause?

Question about using a thermal camera versus a standard multimeter for finding a short

I spent three hours last week trying to find a short in a nav system using just a multimeter, tracing wires and checking continuity. I borrowed a coworker's FLIR E4 thermal camera, and the hot spot showed up in about two minutes. Has anyone else made the switch to thermal imaging for this kind of fault finding?

PSA: I just hit 1000 hours on the same LRU bench test

That's a full year of my life just running the same procedure on the same box (a Garmin G1000 display unit, if you're curious). It's wild how much time you can burn on one part. Anyone else ever get stuck in a test loop that just goes on forever?

Had to troubleshoot a faulty VHF comm unit on a Citation last Friday.

Started with the old method of swapping the whole LRU based on the MEL, which took about two hours with the paperwork. Then I actually pulled the fault codes from the central maintenance computer and it pointed right to a bad coax run behind the panel. Fixed the connector in thirty minutes. Why do some shops still default to the LRU swap before a proper diagnostic pull?

Why does nobody talk about the difference a proper pin crimp makes on a D-sub connector?

I was reworking a 37-pin connector on a nav system last week and the intermittent fault vanished after I recrimped every pin with the right tool. The old crimps looked okay but had high resistance under load. Has anyone else seen a problem that only showed up with the system powered?

Got schooled on a 737 MAX autothrottle fault in Seattle last month

Last month in Seattle, I was working on a 737 MAX that kept throwing an intermittent autothrottle fault. The logs were pointing to the A/T servo, so I swapped it out, no change. My lead, a guy who's been doing this since the 90s, came over and just started wiggling wires in the MFD bay. Found a single pin in a cannon plug that was backed out maybe a millimeter. You couldn't even see it without a magnifier. He pushed it home, fault cleared, and I felt like a total rookie. It was one of those 'check the simple stuff first' moments that you know but sometimes forget when you're chasing ghosts in the system. Has anyone else had a headache fault that ended up being something stupid simple like a connector?

Seeing less plastic waste in avionics part shipments lately.

Just realized my display flicker was from a loose cable clip.

Pushed it back in and BOOM, perfect picture.

TIL to always clean connectors, and wow, it matters.

I skipped this step for years to save time. Started doing it last month, and already it caught a bad pin in a flight control system. Such a SIMPLE thing with BIG results.

Rant: The new diagnostic software thinks it knows my job better than I do

I was fixing a comms issue on a regional jet last month. The onboard computer said everything was fine, but the pilot kept reporting static. I had to ignore the fancy screen and actually trace the antenna wiring by hand. Turns out, a corroded connector was the problem, something the software missed completely. It feels like we're trusting machines too much and losing basic troubleshooting skills. I see this more and more in my hangar, with younger techs going straight to the manual. What do you guys think? Are we too reliant on tech now?

Can we talk about my home wiring hack with an avionics tool?

I was tidying up my home office cables and had a bad connector. Grabbed my aircraft crimper from the job, and it held the tiny wires just right. What other pro tools do you bring home for small repairs?

Took a crack at restoring an old nav unit for fun, and it actually powered up.

I've been tinkering with this thing for months in my spare time. Seeing the display light up for the first time was a real thrill. Next step is to get the readings right.

DAE fly into a small mountain airport and just... think about all the terrain avionics keeping you safe?

Serious question, why do so many techs brush off old nav systems? Putting a vintage VOR box back together on my bench totally shifted my thinking.