That moment I realized my multimeter leads were lying to me

Last Tuesday I was troubleshooting a comm antenna on a King Air out at KAPA and spent 45 minutes chasing a phantom open circuit. Turned out the test lead on my Fluke had a hairline crack near the probe tip giving intermittent readings depending on how I held it. Has anyone else had a set of leads fail in a weird way that cost you time before you figured it out?

3 comments

3 Comments

jade5171mo ago

Happened to me with a pair of leads that had the wire break right inside the silicone strain relief. Worked fine if the lead was straight, but bend it even a little and readings went all over the place. Cost me two hours on a generator governor before I thought to wiggle the wires. Now I always do a quick continuity check on my leads by bending them in different spots before I start any real troubleshooting. Saves a lot of headache.

ruby_henderson361mo ago

Had a pair do the same thing right out of the box once. Took way too long to figure out why the multimeter was acting weird. Folding them into the case was enough to lose connection.

karen3611mo ago

Jade517 man that generator governor story hits close to home. I had a similar thing happen with a furnace blower motor once, wasted a whole afternoon chasing a phantom issue before I realized the test lead was the problem. You can't trust anything if your gear is flaky. That pre-test wiggle method you mentioned is gold, I do the same thing now with every set of leads I pick up. Nothing worse than second guessing your tools when you're already in the middle of a job.