the_rowan•3d agoMost Upvoted

I finally figured out why my tester kept giving false readings

Was troubleshooting a nav radio in a Cessna 172 at the hangar last Thursday, kept getting intermittent faults on the VOR display. Turns out the ground strap on my handheld tester was corroded from sitting in a toolbox drawer for 3 months, cleaned it with a wire brush and the readings were solid. Anyone else find their test gear needs more maintenance than the actual aircraft?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona_fox563d ago

You ever had that moment where you realize you were the problem all along? I used to blame the aircraft wiring for everything, thought my test gear was just fine because it looked clean on the outside. Then one day my multimeter started giving weird resistance readings on an old Piper, and I finally popped it open. Inside the battery compartment was this green crust all over the terminals, been sitting in my bag through a wet season. Spent an hour cleaning it up and suddenly all my readings made sense. Now I check my tools way more often than I check the planes.

alicem292d ago

Green crust all over the terminals" - oh man, that got me. I literally stopped reading for a second because I've been there, just not on a multimeter. I had a cheap battery tester I used for years, and the thing would always give me wild readings on alkaline batteries. I just assumed the batteries were bad. Then one day I took it apart and the inside looked like a science experiment gone wrong. Corrosion everywhere, little fuzzy bits of metal eating through the contacts. I felt like a total fool.