Hello all and apologies in advance if this is covered on another thread. Our Cirrus is a 2005 SR22 NA G2 with the SIU unit and analog engine monitoring backups (no glove box). On a recent flight into IMC, I lost all engine monitoring for about 5-10 mins. It returned and seemed to be functioning normally, but was enough of a failure for me to request a diversion to an alternate airport.
The mechanics are suspecting static electricity build up. Our plane does not have any static wicks on the wings or elevators. Is this something others have experienced and if so were you able to solve?
Picture is from cruise at 5000 ft in full IMC. We had only been in IMC for about 5 minutes, maybe 10, before the failure occurred.
I’ve had a few instances of this recently. Sometimes just flying along where it could be static, and sometimes associated with switching the landing light on. Almost certainly a grounding issue, just need to find where. I did check the probe and it’s grounded, anyone know how many milli-ohms is “good enough”? Or where else to look?
Thanks all for the comments. Quick update - our shop attributed the issue to grounding and corrosion that had built up in the OAT sensor. Cleaned the corrosion and I thought that did the trick as it was fine and did not repeat in last 40-50 hours of flight. But it did unfortunately reoccur today on both legs of a long cross country from Atlanta to Lousiana, and both times in full IMC just ranging from 3-7 Celsius.
So I will of course address with the our local cirrus service center but still wondering if there is an approach that may be more comprehensive involving installation of wicks or something to address static build in the clouds. In all cases monitoring came back alive once clear of clouds.
Todd. Quick Question. I am running into a similar issue starting this week, where all the engineering monitoring information is not present in the MFD, but I am still getting all the engine data (revs, oil pressure, etc ) being displayed at the bottom of the PFD which seems to imply that my SIU unit is still working. Were you seeing the same scenario where information was not being shared on the MFD but you had partial information on the PFD?
We actually just had the static wick STC done when the plane was in for the Vantage 12 upgrade. I’ve only flown about 5-10 hours in the new screens but have t had the issue reappear. Hopefully the static wicks do the trick.
Our entrgra screens did not show engine info on the pfd, only the mfd, so can’t really help with that. But the issue did persist from the time of my post through a month or so ago, when we had the vantage upgrade done. Only occurred in actual (and solid) IMC. Made me pretty reluctant to fly IFR so looking forward to being on the other side of it hopefully.
