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Warning: a loose cannon plug cost me 3 hours and a bruised ego on a Falcon 900
Man, I have to vent about this one. A Falcon 900 came in with a squawk that the left engine would not respond to the thrust lever during the pre-flight run, so I figured easy, bad connector or a chafed wire somewhere. I pulled the panel and started chasing the harness with a Fluke meter, checked continuity pin by pin on the cannon plug, ran the whole loom twice, and found nothing. Two and a half hours in I was ready to blame the EEC itself and start pulling parts, which would have been a whole different mess. I finally grabbed a light and a mirror and looked at the plug shell from the back side, and one of the socket contacts had backed out of the connector body just enough to lose contact when the plug was seated. Re-crimped and reseated it, ran the engine, and it was fine. Three hours of my life on a contact that took 30 seconds to fix once I saw it. Anybody else got a trick for catching backed-out pins before you waste half a shift on a meter? I need to stop trusting the front view of these things.
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kelly63826d ago
Learned this the hard way too, now I always do a light tug test on every pin from the back before I even grab the meter. Saves me so much time, if it moves at all it's coming out. Also check the plug with it half seated sometimes, that's when a backed out pin will actually show itself.
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