Pro tip: A cold hangar in Anchorage taught me to always check the date code on connectors

I was working on a Citation XLS up there last winter, trying to fix a faulty nav system. The plane had been sitting for a few months. I traced the issue to a bad D-sub connector in the avionics bay. It looked fine, no corrosion. After three hours of head scratching, I finally looked at the tiny date code molded into the plastic housing. It was from 2003. The cold had made the old plastic brittle, and a pin was making an intermittent connection you couldn't see. I replaced it with a new one from stock and the system came right up. Now, before I even pull out a multimeter on an older bird, I check those date codes on any plastic connector. Has anyone else run into problems with old connector materials failing like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayden_lane1mo ago

Man, that's a great catch. But I gotta say, it's not just the cold. Those old plastics get brittle anywhere. Sunlight and heat do it too. I've seen the same thing on connectors in Arizona. The plastic just crumbles when you touch it. UV light breaks it down over time. Date code is the real tell, not just the weather.

lucasschmidt1mo ago

Hold on, you're both missing the point. A date code is just a number. I've pulled plenty of connectors from the 90s that work perfectly. The real problem is how the plane was stored. That Anchorage hangar probably had wild temperature swings, or maybe someone used a harsh cleaner on it once. Brittle plastic happens from bad care, not just age. I'd bet a connector from 2003 in a climate controlled hangar would be fine. You're blaming the part when it's really about the environment it lived in.

nina_campbell29d ago

Yeah, the part about it being a bigger pattern is so true. It's like how the rubber seals on my old car doors just gave out last winter, they looked fine but just turned to crumbs. You start to see expiration dates on things you never thought had them. Makes you wonder what else is quietly aging out around us, just waiting for the wrong conditions to fail.