Skeptical about those cheap TDR meters, now I use one every week

I mean, I always figured the $80 time domain reflectometers were just toys for hobby guys. Back in March we had a flickering issue on a CRJ that took us two days to track down manually, and my lead finally insisted we try one. It found a water damaged segment behind a panel in under ten minutes, which honestly blew my mind. Now we keep the cheap one in our toolbox at the MRO in Atlanta and it's paid for itself maybe five times over. Has anyone else had a budget tool that ended up being a daily driver for you?

2 comments

2 Comments

alice9281mo ago

That "water damaged segment in under ten minutes" part got me. My buddy Mitch over at a regional carrier had the same thing happen with their avionics bench. He bought one of those cheap ones just to test a coax run in a hangar, ended up chasing a ghost on a Dash 8 for three days. Plugged the TDR in, found the break was actually at a connector that looked fine from the outside. Now their whole crew uses it before they even touch a multimeter. He says it's the best $90 they ever spent on a "toy" that turned out to be a lifesaver.

adam9191mo ago

Mitch’s story tracks, but I’d push back on the part about skipping the multimeter, that cheap TDR can’t tell you if a connector has a bad crimp or a cold solder joint, it just shows where the signal stops. In my experience you still need both tools to nail down the actual cause, but yeah, it’s a huge time saver once you know its limits.