Fluke Banana Jack Repair

Fluke 80-series Broken JackEver bought a set of those cheap Chinese-made multimeter probes?  They probably had some little plastic inserts in the banana plugs.  For what reason I’m not sure, maybe to keep the safety shroud around the plug from deforming.  Don’t toss them in the trash.  Instead toss the probes in the trash (they’re not that great) and keep the inserts, because you can fix the broken inner jack shrouds on your $300 Fluke DMM with them!

A brand-new jack assembly can be found for $30 (or more), but this is quick and the results are pretty good.

The ‘CA activator’ mentioned above is a very volatile fluid that comes in a spray bottle.  When it comes in contact with cyanoacrylate (CA) glue, it causes a chemical reaction that results in instant hardening.  The common water-thin variety of CA glue (aka superglue) usually just makes a mess, but the slow-setting gel form of CA glue, used with the activator, can make effective repairs for many non-porous materials.  A small bottle of CA activator is not expensive and should be easily found in hobby stores, since CA glues are very popular with airplane modelers that use balsa wood.

About modemhead

Fixologist and multimeter junkie.
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8 Responses to Fluke Banana Jack Repair

  1. Harvey says:

    You bodging git ha ha :-))

    “Activator” hmm you have peaked my interest, do tell the secret mrmodem 🙂

    Ive found superglue to be a bit hit and miss, im sure it has become weaker since i used to buy it as a lad, locktight superglue 3 worked really well originally.

    As im a nasty bodger, i would have used a length of heatshrink tube and apply a warm soldering iron to the pin to shrink it, but not to a fluke, so dont panic lol.

    Good repair mate, if you hadnt pointed it out i would not have noticed the replacement tube 🙂

    • modemhead says:

      CA activator is not really a secret, especially to anyone who has built a balsa-wood RC airplane model in the past 20 years. I added some verbage to the post about it. Good stuff for fixers. If the ladies can’t find you handsome, at least they can find you handy. Red Green

      The heat shrink is a good idea, but you’d have to take care not to pull the prongs too close together, making the jack overly tight.

  2. Harvey says:

    Red_green, ha ha i laughed like a hyena with hiccups 🙂

    Into firefox bookmarks his channel goes 🙂

  3. I have seen much and did much by holding my screwdriver over the years, but I have never thought that those plastics they can get in there as spare parts.
    Thanks.

  4. Frank says:

    What a great fix. Had an old Extech that has served me well for many years. Both the COM and V,Ohm jacks broke. This made the readings very unreliable. Called Extech to see if I could buy replcmts. Wouldn’t do it. They could , however, take it in for evaluation and repair. $99 minimum. I happened to have a few sets of those inserts hanging around. Just finished the repair and you wouldn’t know that they were ever broken. I will nver forget this trick or ever throw those inserts away. My pack rat mentality caused me to save them in the first place, because you never know!!!
    Thanks!!

  5. mikeb says:

    Thanks for posting this great idea. Just fixed an eBay bargain Fluke 87 that had the jack shrouds missing from the COM & V-Ohm jacks and got unreliable readings due to poor connection to the probes.

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