Showerthought: An old instructor told me to always check the cannon plug first, and he was right

Spent 3 hours chasing a phantom fault on a G1000 display, and it was just a pin backed out in the connector at the tray. How many hours have you guys wasted ignoring the simple stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

williamm821mo ago

That "check the cannon plug first" advice used to sound like lazy troubleshooting to me. I thought real techs dug into schematics, not just wiggled wires. Then I lost a full day on a nav radio that wouldn't power up, replaced the whole unit, and it was just a dirty pin in the back. Now my multimeter leads go on the connector before anything else. What was your most annoying simple fix?

elliot_barnes1mo ago

My buddy spent three hours on a fuel gauge reading empty. Turns out the float arm in the tank got stuck on a zip tie.

theac631mo ago

My uncle's a mechanic and he calls it "chasing the ghost". That zip tie story from elliot_barnes is a perfect example. I see it everywhere now, from a blinking router light being a loose cable to a car check engine light from a gas cap. We jump to the complex fix because the simple one feels too easy.