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Had the worst Tuesday of my career troubleshooting a Cessna 172 avionics rack
Last month I got called out to a small repair shop in Flagstaff for a 172 that kept blowing the avionics master relay. The owner swore it was a bad alternator so I spent the morning testing the charging system, all good. Then I figured it was the relay itself, swapped it out and it popped again in 10 minutes. By 2 PM I was seriously second guessing myself and almost told the guy to take it to a bigger shop. But then I remembered something from an old A&P I used to work with about chasing voltage drops on the ground bus. Pulled the entire avionics rack and found a stripped screw holding down a ground strap that had been arcing against a terminal block. One new screw and a washer later everything worked perfect. Has anyone else had a simple ground issue ruin their whole day like that?
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james53321d agoMost Upvoted
Man that's the kind of fix that makes you want to kick yourself.
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noahbaker21d ago
Ask @james533 if he ever figured out why that was the problem in the first place?
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