Blew a connector pin on a flight line install yesterday and almost caused a delay

I was out on the ramp at PDX yesterday afternoon swapping out an old nav radio in a King Air... had everything lined up perfect, but when I went to seat the D-sub connector, I felt it give wrong. Pulled it back and sure enough, one of the pins folded over and snapped off inside the shell. Took me 45 minutes with a dental pick and a magnifying lamp to dig the broken piece out without damaging the other pins. The crew was standing there waiting on me, and the pilot kept checking his watch every five minutes. Finally got a new connector soldered up and tested it with the multimeter before buttoning it up. Everything passed okay, but my hands were shaking the whole time from the pressure. Has anyone else had a D-sub pin fail like that on a tight timeline?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_jake16d ago

my hands were shaking the whole time from the pressure" - dude, I'm still gripping my coffee mug just reading that. You had a pilot breathing down your neck while trying to fish a snapped pin out of a D-sub with dental tools under a magnifying lamp? That's the kind of stuff that gives me cold sweats just thinking about it. I've never had a pin snap off like that, but I've had enough connector pins bend on me during installs to know that feeling of dread when it goes wrong. Props to you for keeping it together and getting it swapped out without blowing the whole timeline.

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logan63216d ago

Is it really that deep though?🤔