Watched the whole FAA repair process at KDAB last weekend

I was killing time near the Daytona Beach airport last Saturday and ended up watching an avionics shop swap out a Garmin GMA 245 audio panel on a Cessna 172. The way they labeled every single wire pin on a strip before even touching the connector made me rethink my own messy bench habits. Any of you guys follow a strict pin labeling routine or just wing it like I used to?

2 comments

2 Comments

thea24623d ago

Totally agree, it's wild how something so simple makes such a huge difference. I had the exact same moment a few months back when I watched an old timer at my local field rewire a com radio. He pulled out a labeled piece of painter's tape for every single wire before he even touched the connector block. Made me feel like a total slob with my pile of uncut wires. Now I always pre-label everything with a sharpie on a strip of tape, even for a quick swap. It takes an extra five minutes but saves so much headache when you're trying to trace a bad pin later.

noah91723d ago

Hold on though, I gotta gently push back on something. Pre-labeling with sharpie on painter's tape works great for a lot of stuff, but if you're working on a plane's wiring in a hot or oily hangar, that tape can get loose or the sharpie can smudge off really fast. I mean, I've had it happen with cheaper tape where the label just vanishes after a week. Might be worth picking up some proper flag labels or even a label maker for permanent stuff, especially if it's under a panel that might get bumped. But yeah, the idea is solid, just gotta use the right gear for it.