Pro tip: learned a faster way to trace wire bundles in the 737 overhead panel

I spent 3 hours last week chasing a short in the overhead panel until an old-timer showed me to use a toner probe on the connector pins instead of tracing each wire by hand, anyone else got a trick for cutting down troubleshooting time?

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eric_ramirez677d ago

Hang on a second though, a toner probe works by sending a signal down a specific wire, not on the connector pins themselves unless you know exactly which pin goes where. You gotta clip the probe to the wire after you pop the pin out of the connector or you'll just get a mess of noise from all the other circuits running through the same bundle. The real trick is to use a back-probe adapter to reach the pin without pulling the connector, then isolate the circuit on the schematic first. That way you don't waste time toning out a wire that's just a ground or a dead end.