insulating peircing probes?

[coppercone2]

Does anyone use these for repair?

I was thinking about it because they seem useful when dealing with a wiring harness that is say laced together and really difficult to track down going to different areas, particularly if there are PCB and chassis elements hooked together, especially since these are usually soldered.

I see a few options available, are they trustworthy? Is it a tool that leaves such a small hole that its safe to use afterwards or do you think after the problem is found and such a tool is used, the wire should be replaced?

Say up to 300V. 

AH, the spec includes voltage. 60V, but anyway how do you feel about how much damage is left behind ?

you have teflon, silicone and PVC insulation for starters. I have a feeling it won't work at all with teflon?

[floobydust]

Missing pic?
Needle probes are good for working on boards with conformal coating, or poking through a wire's insulation for fast troubleshooting, or just small SMT probing.
I use Pomona with silicone wire, good quality.
6342 is gold plated but a pogo-pin (spring end) so you can't really nail something. Cat. II 1,000V.
6275 is stainless steel tip (no spring) and I constantly stab myself. 60V only and a poor crimp connection to the aluminium tube so low ohmic readings are not great.

I have not tried low cost ones from china.
If you're poor, you can make some probes using old pens and sewing needles which are very sharp fine point. Russians do this.

For existing probes, heatshrink tubing is fine to lessen the exposed tip.

[crerus75]

Piercing probes are commonly used in the automotive repair industry as an alternative to back probing the connector for two reasons:

1.  Some components live in a hell-hole so you can't always access the connector to back probe.
2.  The back probe itself can either disturb a good connection or fix a bad one, masking or creating a problem.

Any pokey-holes that you make in an automotive harness have to be covered in something like liquid electrical tape after you're done testing or you'll have a corrosion problem somewhere down the road.  I don't know what the dielectric strength of liquid electrical tape is (maybe you have to use something else at 300V), but I wouldn't leave any holes in the wire insulation.  That's just asking for trouble. 

Some of the most common ones I've seen for automotive work are made by Fluke (TP81/TP82) and Pomona (6405/6413).  They're not rated for more than 60ish volts, so you'll have to find something else for line voltage.

[coppercone2]

yeah I thought it was self healing enough, all these probes seem to have a very big hole size.

If you need to put something over the hole you made and trust adhesives in side of a tight chassis that is just too much, its not for this kind of work. Even if it was good, making a diagram and finding the wires is less work then patching the holes. I already get mad when its slightly touched by a soldering iron, let alone being patched up like leaky plumbing..

[David Hess]

yeah I thought it was self healing enough, all these probes seem to have a very big hole size.

The piercing probes that I have from Pomona are steel, not brass, and sharp like sewing needles, and I keep them sharp with a whetstone.