Surprised by how many wire faults come from bad shielding connections

I was reading through some old FAA service difficulty reports last week and noticed something that caught me off guard. Out of about 230 avionics related issues in a single month, nearly 40 percent traced back to poor shielding termination at connector backshells. I always assumed most problems would be from broken wires or bad pins, but it turns out ground loops and interference from loose braid are way more common. It makes sense when you think about it, but I never realized the numbers were that high. Has anyone else found specific termination methods that cut down on these kinds of faults in the field?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennysullivan28d ago

Same pattern shows up in cars and home audio gear all the time. People chase phantom static or odd electrical noise for months, then find out some ground shield at a harness connector got crushed or corroded. It's almost like the stuff that seems least important in a build ends up causing the most headaches. Back when I wired my shop's sound system, I spent hours swapping speakers before realizing the shielding on a cheap RCA cable was barely making contact at the jacket. Cheap connectors with that plastic ferrule nonsense are the worst for this too.

the_cole28d ago

Plastic ferrules? Bro, that's some straight up crime against audio lol. How do people still sell that garbage?