Continuity & Connections#

Is this connected to that? Opens, shorts, solder joints, cables, traces. The simplest measurements, but often the first ones that matter when something doesn’t work.

• Is this joint making contact? — Solder joints, crimp connections, header pins, socket contacts. Continuity beep vs. resistance measurement for marginal joints.
• Is there a short between these nets? — Board faults, solder bridges, damaged traces. Using resistance and diode mode to find shorts, and techniques for narrowing down location.
• Which pin maps to which wire? — Cable tracing, connector pinouts, and verifying wiring against a schematic. Especially useful for unfamiliar harnesses or hand-wired assemblies.
• Is this connection intermittent? — Cracked solder joints, fractured traces, loose connectors. Techniques for catching faults that only appear under vibration, flex, or thermal stress.