Testing for intermittent connections

testing
cable
qualmeter-x
#1

Hi,

Looking forward to the arrival of the qualMeter/qooMeter X units!

Is there any utility in wiggling/moving the cable around during cable testing?

That is, would a questionable cable with an intermittent connection (due to, say, a kink in the wire or poor or pulled solder connections between the wires and the solder-pads inside the plug ends) be more likely to be marked to be bad using this technique?

Thanks,
Brendan

#2

@brendanhoar

This is a good question.

I would say yes. You can actually test an intermittent connection with qualMeter. All you need to do is to take your time and to make more tests by twisting you cable in different positions. If your cable is somehow broken inside, you should be able to find the right spot when you twist it in different ways. The qualMeter’s reaction would be different accordingly.

  • If your wire is disconnected, the qualMeter will not perform the cable testing. It’ll test the charger instead. The blue Cable Test LED won’t light up.
  • If your wire is shorted, the qualMeter will give you flashing red light.

However, you have to unplug and re-plug it in for each test though.

Thanks!

Jack

#3

Hi…this queue tested some programmer limits. That is, i lost a few programmers that could not wrap their head around failed sends and putting the item into a queue for retries later.
But that’s how the system works. You can never be sure of the connections.