Spent a year crimping pin connectors wrong, a $12 tool finally showed me

Back in March I was doing a harness repair on a King Air in Wichita and kept getting intermittent signals on the NAV unit. I blamed the old wire, swapped it twice, no luck. Then a senior tech asked to see my crimp and pointed out I was crushing the insulation instead of the barrel, so the pin had play. He handed me a cheap inspection magnifier and I saw the strands were barely holding. Fixed it right in 20 minutes with the proper die position and it passed first try. Anyone else discover a basic habit they'd been messing up for years because nobody checked your work early on?

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maxp682h ago

Used to think a crimp was a crimp as long as the tool closed all the way. Spent like ten years doing basic aviation work and never looked close enough at my own pins. Then one day I had a flap position sensor acting up on a 172 and the same thing happened. Old guy next to me just squinted at it, handed me a 10x loupe, and said look at the barrel. First time I ever saw the strands sitting loose like that. Now I check every single one with a magnifier before I shrink wrap it. Still makes me cringe thinking about all those earlier connections I thought were fine.