Sandel

I have noticed all the negative posts about the ARNAV unit but have seen relatively few about the Century HSI units; both vacuum and electric. It seems there have been MULTIPLE problems from many owners using these units. I know of one case where the airplane is less than 6 months old and the HSI has been replaced FOUR TIMES already.

Since the HSI displays the primary Nav data, if the unit fails, unless you have a “C” package, you lose all ILS capability. The Garmins have been very reliable but their weakest link seems to be the display unit they use; the HSI.

Since Cirrus now offers the Sandel unit in the SR22, why not have it as an option or even “standard equipment” on the SR20. When you compare the price of the Sandel vs the Century, there is not that much difference as it turns out.

What do you folks think? I would much rather have a Sandel than a Century based on what I have seen so far.

Brian

How do we know the Sandel is any better?

I have noticed all the negative posts about the ARNAV unit but have seen relatively few about the Century HSI units; both vacuum and electric. It seems there have been MULTIPLE problems from many owners using these units. I know of one case where the airplane is less than 6 months old and the HSI has been replaced FOUR TIMES already.

Since the HSI displays the primary Nav data, if the unit fails, unless you have a “C” package, you lose all ILS capability. The Garmins have been very reliable but their weakest link seems to be the display unit they use; the HSI.

Since Cirrus now offers the Sandel unit in the SR22, why not have it as an option or even “standard equipment” on the SR20. When you compare the price of the Sandel vs the Century, there is not that much difference as it turns out.

What do you folks think? I would much rather have a Sandel than a Century based on what I have seen so far.

Brian

For those who have the “C” configuration, the cheapest backup, in my opinion, is to the the GPSS tied to the autopilot. In the event of an HSI failure, the autopilot can be used to direct the airplane.

I have noticed all the negative posts about the ARNAV unit but have seen relatively few about the Century HSI units; both vacuum and electric. It seems there have been MULTIPLE problems from many owners using these units. I know of one case where the airplane is less than 6 months old and the HSI has been replaced FOUR TIMES already.

Since the HSI displays the primary Nav data, if the unit fails, unless you have a “C” package, you lose all ILS capability. The Garmins have been very reliable but their weakest link seems to be the display unit they use; the HSI.

Since Cirrus now offers the Sandel unit in the SR22, why not have it as an option or even “standard equipment” on the SR20. When you compare the price of the Sandel vs the Century, there is not that much difference as it turns out.

What do you folks think? I would much rather have a Sandel than a Century based on what I have seen so far.

Brian

I have a C configuration SR20, which has, um, probably 150 hours on it now. We have had four failures of the electric Century, which i think is the model 1000. The failures in order:

  1. Would not display/acquire Localizer and Glideslope

  2. Would not extinguish the GS flag, even when GS signal valid

  3. DG card stopped turning in the soup (!), but then would work intermittently.

  4. DG card stopped turning completely.

I believe in each repair, a remanned unit was exchanged for the failed unit. Note that the first two failures relate to the NAV functions, and the last to relate to the totally independent DG functions.

If these failures are all independent of one other, and involve separate units, as I think is the case, then the HSI is the second most unreliable piece of equipment in the plane, after of course the landing light.

I have heard grumblings from several people about the problems with the electric century. How have people’s experiences been with the vacuum driven version?

–Brand

How do we know the Sandel is any better?

Exactly, don’t forget that the Sandel is a display unit only. It must be hooked up to an external gyro and a flux gate just to make the DG work, and then obviously nav1/nav2/gps1 for all of the navigation stuff.

I love my Sandel, but even my aircraft is still going through some debugging.

Rumor has it that the Century HSIs have a high damage rate in shipping/installation, but once you get one that works, it’s solid.

How do we know the Sandel is any better?

I have noticed all the negative posts about the ARNAV unit but have seen relatively few about the Century HSI units; both vacuum and electric. It seems there have been MULTIPLE problems from many owners using these units. I know of one case where the airplane is less than 6 months old and the HSI has been replaced FOUR TIMES already.

Since the HSI displays the primary Nav data, if the unit fails, unless you have a “C” package, you lose all ILS capability. The Garmins have been very reliable but their weakest link seems to be the display unit they use; the HSI.

Since Cirrus now offers the Sandel unit in the SR22, why not have it as an option or even “standard equipment” on the SR20. When you compare the price of the Sandel vs the Century, there is not that much difference as it turns out.

What do you folks think? I would much rather have a Sandel than a Century based on what I have seen so far.

Brian

Gary:

It has gotton rave reviews but all users. It has much better capability than a conventional HSI, it has fewer moving parts to break and is designed to interface seamlessly WITH THE GARMIN 430.Their customer support is top notch and the only problem is that you have to change the light bulb in the unit every 200 hours at a cost of $25. The Century has to have a $2800 maintenance job done on it every 4-5 years. There is nothing not to like.

Brian

How do we know the Sandel is any better?

Exactly, don’t forget that the Sandel is a display unit only. It must be hooked up to an external gyro and a flux gate just to make the DG work, and then obviously nav1/nav2/gps1 for all of the navigation stuff.

I love my Sandel, but even my aircraft is still going through some debugging.

Rumor has it that the Century HSIs have a high damage rate in shipping/installation, but once you get one that works, it’s solid.

Does anyone know? The price on the c package to upgrade to sandel.And those that have it do you recomend this to the rest of us. From Don

How do we know the Sandel is any better?

Exactly, don’t forget that the Sandel is a display unit only. It must be hooked up to an external gyro and a flux gate just to make the DG work, and then obviously nav1/nav2/gps1 for all of the navigation stuff.

I love my Sandel, but even my aircraft is still going through some debugging.

Rumor has it that the Century HSIs have a high damage rate in shipping/installation, but once you get one that works, it’s solid.

I have seen at least 3 units fail after shipping and after a second installation in the Cirrus. You are correct that an additional source of heading information is dtill needed. I wonder how much extra that costs? But does not the Century unit have the same needs? Have you had any problems with your Sadel so far?

Brian

Brian,

I’m afraid that I can’t answer in the affirmative about my Sandel hookup being glitch free. Given that we’re all still actively debugging it (Sandel, Cirrus, myself), I won’t comment further until I have something to say. Currently I doubt highly that it is the Sandel unit itself, i think it may be the hookup or another unit in the plane.

I suspect that other SR22 owners may have less of an issue or not see it at all. Remember, mine was the first one hooked up in a production environment.

Paul

I meet a fellow today that has the sandel in his new archer with the 430 stack. He loves the setup but they are chasing a glich. Buy glich he has to reboot the sandel after the garmins have come on line, from what they are telling him this seems to be a common problem and they are working on it. The fix seems to be to reboot the sandel so they are looking at the software end…Ed

I meet a fellow today that has the sandel in his new archer with the 430 stack. He loves the setup but they are chasing a glich. Buy glich he has to reboot the sandel after the garmins have come on line, from what they are telling him this seems to be a common problem and they are working on it. The fix seems to be to reboot the sandel so they are looking at the software end…Ed

The problem is certainly not universal. I’m working on my instrument rating in a 2000 Archer III with dual GNS430s and the Sandel EHSI. The Garmins and Sandel have worked flawlessly on each flight so far.

George

SR22 #95

The Century has to have a $2800 maintenance job done on it every 4-5 years.

Brian

Brian,

I thin the $2,800 routine maintenance figure that someone gave you on the Century HSI is in error. I wrote to Century about that and here’s their reply . . .

Dear Mr. Sortor,

Thank you for your email concerning the NSD1000. This system has no required periodic maintenance outside of the standard pre-flight checks.

Even though the MTBF (mean time between failure) for this unit has not been calculated we generally see these units run in excess of 2000 hrs without service. I looked into the repair costs for this unit and found that most repairs are well under $400.00. Even high end repairs generally do not exceed $1,000.00. I hope this information is helpful.

Best regards,

Martin Oswald

Brand & Brian,

I’ve mentioned this to both of you privately, but for the benefit of the group, I have had two Century HSI (vacuum-driven NSD-360) glideslope failures. The first time the GS went out completely and the unit was replaced.

It worked for a week or two, but now when I power up the 430, the glideslope shows “dead on” center, instead of the “up 1 dot” displacement. That is, until I tap the HSI glass. After I tap-tap-tap on the HSI glass pretty hard, it unsticks the glideslope pointer and it goes to the right place. When flying a practice ILS in VFR conditions it appears to work okay, and if I power cycle the 430 afterwards it seems to work… until the next time I come out to the plane and start it up, when it sticks again.

Not real confidence-inspiring… especially since the “failure mode” appears to be with the glideslope showing you’re right on track, with no warning flag.

I plan to bring it in to the shop who replaced it the first time pretty soon.

Of course, this portion of the HSI is probably identical whether it’s vacuum or electric. I haven’t had any problems with the vacuum portion (i.e. DG portion) of the HSI.

Steve

I have heard grumblings from several people about the problems with the electric century. How have people’s experiences been with the vacuum driven version?

–Brand