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Pin cleaning kit talk after a flap position sensor fail
Last Tuesday we had an A320 with a flap position sensor showing wild values, false warnings all over the cockpit. Turned out corrosion on the connector pins, nothing else wrong. I used to just spray contact cleaner and call it done, but spent three hours chasing gremlins because the pins looked fine under the borescope. A senior guy showed me his fiber optic pin probe and a tiny jewelers file, said surface crud is the enemy. Now I inspect every pin under magnification before anything else, especially on older ships. Anyone else swear by a specific pin cleaning method that actually holds up for more than a few cycles?
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gavinb9712d ago
That DeoxIT D5 in the red can has been my go to for years, but I learned the hard way that it can leave a film that attracts dust if you overdo it. We had a 737 that kept throwing intermittent autopilot disconnects, and the modem pins looked perfect until we hit them with a 10x loupe. The residue was baked on like a thin crust, and no amount of spray was touching it. A guy from the next hangar over showed me his trick with a plastic pick and a clean coffee filter, basically scraping and wicking it off. Since then I use the spray only to flush, then follow up with the pick and a dry wipe every single time. It adds maybe ten minutes per connector but I have not had to revisit a single one since.
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