Conversation with a 20-year vet changed my mind about bench testing every single board

I always thought you had to bench test every avionics board before installing it, no exceptions. Then I was talking to this old timer named Dave at a shop in Atlanta last month, and he told me they stopped doing that for certain LRUs after they realized the bench test was introducing more static damage than the install ever would. He showed me their failure rate data - it was like 2% versus 8% when they bench tested everything. Has anyone else seen that kind of flip in their own shop?

3 comments

3 Comments

keith1649h ago

Might be overthinking this. Static damage ain't that common.

gracej993h ago

Fry a board while you're holding the PSU plug though.

the_drew8h ago

Honestly @keith164 I used to think the same way, but after a coworker fried a whole motherboard while swapping RAM on a carpet, I'm way more careful now.