Rant: Stop using standard twist connectors on shielded cable runs

I watched a guy at the hangar yesterday spend 45 minutes chasing a ghost in his comms, and sure enough he had twisted the shield drain wires together under a wire nut like it was a home wiring job. Has anyone else had to redo a whole harness because of this basic mistake?

2 comments

2 Comments

davidh888d ago

Hold on, is it really that big of a deal? I've seen guys twist shield drains together and wrap them with electrical tape for years without any problems in plenty of installs. Yeah, it's not the textbook way to do it and you might get some noise in a high frequency setup, but 45 minutes of chasing a ghost sounds like there could have been a broken wire or a bad connector somewhere else. You sure the guy's issue was just the wire nut and not something else in his build?

gray_patel7d ago

My buddy spent three hours on a ground loop last week before ditching the wire nut fixed it instantly.