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Crimp tool jaws got me on a 7-day-old install, continuity lied to me
Last Thursday I finished up a tray change on a King Air down in Tucson and everything checked out on the meter. I walked away feeling good about it, then Friday the pilot called and said the audio panel was acting like a bad ground. I pulled the connector back apart and found a pin that looked perfect but had a hairline crack in the barrel, that DMC tool I bought secondhand was pushing the crimp just enough to seat, but the contact was floating inside. My training always said to tug test every pin, but I got lazy because continuity was clean, and that cheap test fooled me for half a day of chasing ghosts. I learned to yank on every single pin before I close the shell, even if the meter screams good. Has anyone else had a bad crimp that passed continuity but failed under vibration, and what tool do you trust for the final squeeze?
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