Cable Tracker

[[email protected]]

One of the more troublesome aspects of aviation electrical work is the
fact our wires are usually NOT color-coded. That means you can have a
bundle of twenty wires and before you can do any useful work you will
need to figure out which one of the twenty at the equipment rack is
the frayed one you've spotted behind the instrument panel.

How to do it? The good ol' fashioned way, which I described in an
article some time ago, is to use a continuity tester. That is, a
hunka wire long enough to run from here to there, a couple of
flashlight batteries, and a flashlight bulb. You know you've found
the correct lead when the bulb lights up. I even described a do-it-
yourself tester based on an old-style Navy flashlight.

Alas, while 3 volts ain't all that much, that's what you are
connecting to your wires when you use a continuity-check as I
described in my article. If you're dealing with a real mess, such as
a bundle of wires that have been chopped with an ax (!) ...you could
be connecting those 'unimportant' three volts to a meter-circuit that
blows it's top at two volts.

Whatcha REALLY want is a cable tracker.

A cable track is a little oscillator that puts a warbling TONE on the
wire under test, which you can then 'hear' by waving a matching
receiver at the other end of the wire.

Harbor Freight's gottem. Item #94181 about $20 US, probably less if
you can find a Sale. (But Santa brought me this one :-) I'll
probably do a little write-up, put it on my blog so you can see what
it looks like. But not this year.

Was it a good year? Of course it was; they're all good years. Some
are just better than others.

Time for my Ten O'Clock pills. I'll see you guys next year.

-R.S.Hoover

[[email protected]]

On Jan 1, 1:17*am, " > wrote:
> One of the more troublesome aspects of aviation electrical work is the
> fact our wires are usually NOT color-coded. *That means you can have a
> bundle of twenty wires and before you can do any useful work you will
> need to figure out which one of the twenty at the equipment rack is
> the frayed one you've spotted behind the instrument panel.
>
> How to do it? *The good ol' fashioned way, which I described in an
> article some time ago, is to use a continuity tester. *That is, a
> hunka wire long enough to run from here to there, a couple of
> flashlight batteries, and a flashlight bulb. *You know you've found
> the correct lead when the bulb lights up. *I even described a do-it-
> yourself tester based on an old-style Navy flashlight.
>
> Alas, while 3 volts ain't all that much, that's what you are
> connecting to your wires when you use a continuity-check as I
> described in my article. *If you're dealing with a real mess, such as
> a bundle of wires that have been chopped with an ax (!) ...you could
> be connecting those 'unimportant' three volts to a meter-circuit that
> blows it's top at two volts.
>
> Whatcha REALLY want is a cable tracker.
>
> A cable track is a little oscillator that puts a warbling TONE on the
> wire under test, which you can then 'hear' by waving a matching
> receiver at the other end of the wire.
>
> Harbor Freight's gottem. *Item #94181 about $20 US, probably less if
> you can find a Sale. *(But Santa brought me this one :-) *I'll
> probably do a little write-up, put it on my blog so you can see what
> it looks like. *But not this year.
>
> Was it a good year? *Of course it was; they're all good years. *Some
> are just better than others.
>
> Time for my Ten O'Clock pills. *I'll see you guys next year.
>
> -R.S.Hoover

I just put that on my list for my yearly Harbor Freight run on Friday.
Hope it's in stock.
Thanks
Karl

[Mark]

On Jan 1, 1:17*am, " > wrote:
....you could
> be connecting those 'unimportant' three volts to a meter-circuit that
> blows it's top at two volts.

yep


> A cable track is a little oscillator that puts a warbling TONE on the
> wire under test, which you can then 'hear' by waving a matching
> receiver at the other end of the wire.

good tip. thanks.

> -R.S.Hoover

Mark

[RST Engineering]

..
..
And it takes about 20% more time to do the wiring on a NEW airplane or a
COMPLETE REBUILD on an old one to get the good old aviation white wire
insulation and down to Staples for 9 marking pens; black, brown, red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and gray. (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
and 9) Assign each wire in the aircraft a number in accordance with a
little thought about what the numbers really mean. With three digits you
can have about 800 wires, with four digits 8000. Above that, you are making
a 747.

Each wire starts off with a double stripe of the lead digit. Then one
stripe on the insulation for the second digit, and so on. FOr example, wire
#234 would start off with two thin red stripes around the circumference of
one end of the wire, then a single orange stripe, then a yellow stripe.
THen a CLEAR shrink sleeve around the whole "number". Repeat at the far
end.

Or, get yourself some colored shrink and do the whole job with about half
the time. Same drill, but this time the first digit is twice as wide as the
rest of them.

Jim

--
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it."
--Aristotle


> wrote in message
...
>
>
> One of the more troublesome aspects of aviation electrical work is the
> fact our wires are usually NOT color-coded.

[[email protected]]

On Jan 1, 10:53*am, "RST Engineering" > wrote:
> .
> .
> And it takes about 20% more time to do the wiring on a NEW airplane or a
> COMPLETE REBUILD on an old one . . . . .
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>An along about there Mr. Newbie shakes his head and sez, "Well, I can't see any way that you'd EVER need to re-wire some of them ol' birds," with the clear implication that, as a new owner of an old airplane he is liable to be practiced upon by one of them CERTIFIED fellers who are the only ones ALLOWED to touch his antique battle-damaged warbird.

He's wrong, of course.

Here... lookit this. It's what's left of a 1943 grommet. ("What IS
this stuff?" he asks.) Usta be rubber. No, not Neoprene -- RUBBER.
Came from a big plantation in AFRICA, not Brazil. Sixty years ago.
Sixty years, tucked into a hole in an aluminum bracket of a war-bird.
( This was a coupla years ago.) The 'rubber' is harder than a bride's
biscuits -- you can't even dent it with your thumb-nail. It dried
out, cracked, vibrated loose and left a small bundle of wires to
vibrate against the aluminum bracket, which they did for Heaven knows
how many hours... before it wore through the insulation, shorted out
and set the insulation on fire. Lotsa sixty year old white smoke but
that was about it, plus welding the wire to the bracket and blowing
the breaker. And no, this thing right here in my hand is NOT the
original grommet, it's the one next to it... there were about six of
them, all in this condition.

But here's the Lesson that goes with this little billy-dew: Almost
every piece of rubber in the whole damn plane is in similar condition.

(And here's another lesson: Where are you going to find someone to
rewire it? Because with that attitude of yours it sure as hell ain't
going to be me -- nor by any one I know, least ways not at this
airport :-)

-R.S.Hoover

PS -- Nope, I'm not an A&E. But neither are about 90% of the people
maintaining America's airplanes, from Piper 'Cubs' to Boeing 747's.
What they are, are guys working 'under instruction,' meaning there's a
certified Someone, somewhere out there on the hangar floor.
Bucking rivets, pulling wire, assembling an engine, replacing a
tire... all that sorta work. But don't expect to find 'Am Pan' on the
back of his coveralls nor anyone passing out 1099-R's neither.

[Frank Stutzman[_2_]]

> wrote:


> How to do it? The good ol' fashioned way, which I described in an
> article some time ago, is to use a continuity tester. That is, a
> hunka wire long enough to run from here to there, a couple of
> flashlight batteries, and a flashlight bulb. You know you've found
> the correct lead when the bulb lights up. I even described a do-it-
> yourself tester based on an old-style Navy flashlight.

I built a continuity tester years ago when I was doing a lot of electrical
work on the bonanza. Rather than a flashlight bulb, I used a 99 cent buzzer
from radio shack. I found that with my head stuck up in the innards of the
panel, I couldn't always see a light bulb. I could, however, always hear
the buzzer.

--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Boise, ID

[Beauciphus]

"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
m...
> .
> .
> And it takes about 20% more time to do the wiring on a NEW airplane or a
> COMPLETE REBUILD on an old one to get the good old aviation white wire
> insulation and down to Staples for 9 marking pens; black, brown, red,
> orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and gray. (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
> 8, and 9) Assign each wire in the aircraft a number in accordance with a
> little thought about what the numbers really mean. With three digits you
> can have about 800 wires, with four digits 8000. Above that, you are
> making a 747.
>
> Each wire starts off with a double stripe of the lead digit. Then one
> stripe on the insulation for the second digit, and so on. FOr example,
> wire #234 would start off with two thin red stripes around the
> circumference of one end of the wire, then a single orange stripe, then a
> yellow stripe. THen a CLEAR shrink sleeve around the whole "number".
> Repeat at the far end.

And skip wire #233, or any with repeating last digits. Otherwise you end up
with red-red-orange-orange. You couldn't distinguish that from wire #322.

[[email protected]]

On Jan 1, 3:10*pm, Frank Stutzman > wrote:

> I built a continuity tester years ago when I was doing a lot of electrical
> work on the bonanza. *Rather than a flashlight bulb, I used a 99 cent buzzer
> from radio shack. *I found that with my head stuck up in the innards of the
> panel, I couldn't always see a light bulb. *I could, however, always hear
> the buzzer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Frank,,

An audible continuity tester has many advantages over the simple
Blinking Light, in the article I posted. The only advantage to the
one I described is that it uses parts you already have in your kit
(ie, your flashlight).

As a point of interest, the Wire Tracker under discussion here
incorporates a light-type continuity tester in its transmitter.
Simply set the switch to 'CONT' and use the red & black alligator
clips (crocodile, for the Brits :-) The multi-color LED will show
green when you have a good circuit.

But it doesn't stop there. The 'Cable Tracker' (it's given name) has
a circuit within the tranmitter module specifically for telephones.
With the RJ-11 connector plugged into a telephone outllet, the
transmitter module will tell you if the line is clear, if you've
reversed the green & yellow leads, if the line is busy or if the line
is being dialed. I think this is worth mentioning because 2009 will
probably be the year during which the telephone system as we know it
will be replaced by the cable system most of us have installed for our
COMPUTERS. I believe it's called the 'ooma' system. It allows you
to make telephone calls as easily as your computer connects to distant
terminals... AND FOR THE SAME COST. This will probably see a lot of
people tinkering with their telephone systems -- and finding a device
such as the Cable Tracker to be quite useful in that regard.

-R.S.Hoover

[Peter Dohm]

"RST Engineering" > wrote in message
m...
> .
> .
> And it takes about 20% more time to do the wiring on a NEW airplane or a
> COMPLETE REBUILD on an old one to get the good old aviation white wire
> insulation and down to Staples for 9 marking pens; black, brown, red,
> orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, and gray. (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
> 8, and 9) Assign each wire in the aircraft a number in accordance with a
> little thought about what the numbers really mean. With three digits you
> can have about 800 wires, with four digits 8000. Above that, you are
> making a 747.
>
> Each wire starts off with a double stripe of the lead digit. Then one
> stripe on the insulation for the second digit, and so on. FOr example,
> wire #234 would start off with two thin red stripes around the
> circumference of one end of the wire, then a single orange stripe, then a
> yellow stripe. THen a CLEAR shrink sleeve around the whole "number".
> Repeat at the far end.
>
> Or, get yourself some colored shrink and do the whole job with about half
> the time. Same drill, but this time the first digit is twice as wide as
> the rest of them.
>
> Jim
>
> --
> "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
> without accepting it."
> --Aristotle
>
>
I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version which
works just as well with Telfon and Tefzel which did not acept stamped
numbers very well--even when I had a stamping machine available.

The marking pen is most usefull on Mil-W-5086 and the older (PVC) version of
Mil-W-16878; and should also be kept away from sunlight; but the colored
shrink tube "rocks"!

Peter

[[email protected]]

On Jan 1, 4:24*pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:

> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?

Writing on white (or at least, light colored) Heat Shrink is a pretty
good way of identifying the lead.

-Bob

[Blueskies]

> wrote in message ...
On Jan 1, 4:24 pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:

> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?

Writing on white (or at least, light colored) Heat Shrink is a pretty
good way of identifying the lead.

-Bob


Harbor freight?

[Peter Dohm]

> wrote in message
...
On Jan 1, 4:24 pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:

> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?

Writing on white (or at least, light colored) Heat Shrink is a pretty
good way of identifying the lead.

-Bob


That's a fair question, and I admit that I haven't had occasion to buy this
sort of thing in about a decade. Locally, in Florida, I used to buy heat
shrink from Electronic Equipment Company, Vance Baldwin Electronics and
occasionally Deanco (if I recall the name correctly) in the Orlando area.

I did a Google search using the keywords: color coded heat shrink tube
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=color+coded+heat+shrink+tube&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=
which gave a lot of results, but most provide only a few of the colors.

The most promising for very small quantities, meaning only a couple of four
foot sticks of each color and size, is
http://www.justradios.com/heatshrinktubing.html and they appear to be set up
for completely automated ordering on line with very economical shipping.
Interestingly, they also look good for large quantities and spools are
shipped free.

I was curious, and also gave a phone call to Cable Specialties. They sell
in a minimum of 100 foot packages, so you would need to purchase 1000 feet
of the same size in addition to the clear and extra black; which is more
than most hobbyists would consider at one time. However, they appear to be
an excellent value for "shop" quantities, and carry a wide variety of types
by Mil-Spec.

Of course, those numbered Brady Labels, with a sleeve of clear heat shrink,
are another old stand by--in addition to your suggestion of writing on light
colored heat shrink, and possibly placing a clear sleeve over the result.

But anything other than a stamping machine will make you crazy if you try to
follow the Mil-Spec, or Boeing, workmanship standards to break wires out of
the resulting bundles!

I hope this helps.

Peter

[RST Engineering]

..
..
..
We buy small quantities for prototyping and then let purchasing do the grunt
work for production.

Mouser will sell you four foot sticks of the stuff in all sizes from 1/16 "
to 4" in any of 6 colors for about a buck fifty each, you pay postage.
Shipping time is almost always less than a week. You slice and dice the
little buggers from the large stick.

See www.mouser.com and then the 5174 series in the upper left hand corner of
page 1027. You might also want to look at digikey to see if they have
anything similar. www.digikey.com

It shrinks with a hair dryer, any temperature above boiling water. The
shrink is almost exactly 50%; a stick bought as one-half inch i.d. will
shrink down to one-quarter inch.

As a refinement of the prior message for a "system", you can identify the
"lead digit" several ways. One is with a double-wide piece of shrink (or
two stacked so close together that there is no mistake of your intent, OR,
you always read from the wire END out, OR, you sacrifice the white color and
read from the white end always, OR .... use your noggin.

I prefer a 3 and 4 "digit" breakout. 3 digit for unspecified wires and 4
digit for specific wires. For example, wires going to the dimmer control
are 3-digit (primary power, control, etc.), but 4-digit departing for the #1
radio, 4-digit to the panel floods, etc..

***************************************
One last plea ... I wrote all this stuff up in a Kitplanes article several
years ago. Honest to gesundheit I don't have the time to keep my web page
up with all the articles, although each one of them is in a separate zip
file with all the photos and such. If some kind person is willing to keep
the web page up, then all one of you kind newsgroup denizens would have to
do is go to the web page and there is the article, available for download,
and we could all review it and bring it up to date.

THere are about six years worth of columns. It takes about two hours to
format, check, write the index page, and such for each article. If one of
you kind gentlemen or ladies would like to do one or two a week, in a year
we'd have them all done and up to date. Any takers?

www.rstengineering.com/kitplanes
***************************************

Jim

--
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it."
--Aristotle


"Peter Dohm" > wrote in message
...
>
> > wrote in message
> ...
> On Jan 1, 4:24 pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:
>
>> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?
>
> Writing on white (or at least, light colored) Heat Shrink is a pretty
> good way of identifying the lead.
>
> -Bob

[Ron Wanttaja]

Peter Dohm wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
> On Jan 1, 4:24 pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:
>
>> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?

If you've got a Fry's Electronics, they sell yard-long sections of heat
shrink in a wide range of sizes in a variety of colors.

Ron Wanttaja

[[email protected]]

On Jan 2, 8:15*am, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:
>
> > I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leaping some distance outside of the box, it occurs to me that
downstairs, with the electronic stuff, I've got hook-up wire in
virtually every color of the rainbow as well two-color stripes.

No, it won't shrink but I was homing-in on the IDENTIFICATION of the
leads, which has always been the problem a few years down the road.

I can't get to that part of the shop at present but I think it has the
potential to identify wires if held in place with clear heat-shrink.

Another thot is some glass BEADS I've got around here somewhere, which
would serve once the wire to be identified was threaded through the
appropriate colors, which were then sealed to the lead with heat-
shrink OR a dot of crazy glue... or some damn thing.

[Gig 601Xl Builder]

wrote:
> On Jan 1, 4:24 pm, "Peter Dohm" > wrote:
>
>> I really like this idea, especially the colored heat shrink version
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Do you know a good source of small quantities of the required colors?
>
> Writing on white (or at least, light colored) Heat Shrink is a pretty
> good way of identifying the lead.
>
> -Bob


I got some about a month ago when I was in Fastenal for something else.
They are located everywhere.

http://www.fastenal.com/web/locations.ex