Having been out of the hobby for 15 years, I have to catch up on the reliable servos as I plan to built a 50cc 3D plane. I do not need to know which servos are better than the others !

Please, this is not a brand war and I do not need to know if a brand is better or worse than the other.


I would like to know which specific servos are "great value for money" and very reliable.
If I read a thread on Hitecs, they are the best. If I read another thread on Savox, again they are the best. If I read a thread on Futaba, ...........

I just need to know which specific large scale servos are known to fail or not center and hence "not ot be used".

So, could you just tell me if you have had failures with a specific model of servos and what happened ?

Thanks

You are right about a few changes in 15 years. There are many choices out there. It is important to match the servo with the task. You will hear many very strong opions on servos. Here are a few things to consider.
Size and weight of airframe.
Type of airframe. (Scale,aerobatics,3D etc.)
Flying style you intend to do.
Voltage of your onboard system.
Your budget.
Availability of service.
Multi servos per surface?
and many more factors.
Tell us these things and I am sure you will get a lot of answers. Anything made by man can and does fail. The major brands fail but very rarely. It is usually due to user induced issues.
Richard

If it has anything to do with electronic components, it will fail. Not if, but when. I've had servos fail on all surfaces.

As far as "best bang for the buck", IMO Savox are. Then JR/Futaba. I am running all JR servos in 3 of the 4 GS airplanes I own. JR 8711HV's, 8911HV's and 8611a's. Those 3 aircraft are run on HV set up, only regulators are on the throttle servos. MY 4th plane has Savox 2270's installed. When I switched them from JR 8711HV's to Savox 2270's, I instantly felt a HUGE difference between the 2. The Savox felt crisper and faster than the 8711HV's. I kept all my DR/Expo settings the same, BTW.

Most recent servo failures have been JR servos on throttle. I burnt up 2 motors on 2 different servos. 8611a and 3421. Both servos were running on A123 batteries. Since I went HV with a regulator on throttle servo, I haven't lost a servo. I use the CC BEC switching regulator. And yes, end points are spot on. Been flying 23 years, GS for 13. I know how to set up airplanes and know what binding is.

Good luck!

I switched from hitec to most anything else...dunno if it was just my bad luck or what, but me and the gen 2 circuit dont seem get along so I lost trust in em. The 59 series hitecs work great for me. still have a bunch flying that have been flawless, alas, they are discontinued. Even tryed some cheap servos and have had good luck with em. Savox seems great so far I am really liking the ones i bought. strong, quick and no jitter stuff. . futaba and jr ya cant go wrong with.they are rightly proud of em tho.
Not sure there really is a "best", reading the forums it seems to almost always come down to the luck of the draw.

I have another question for you guys in the mean time :

If a plane RTF manufacturer mentions that it take a 300 oz-in servo on the elevator for example, do you guys trust that or you choose a stronger servo ?

In other words, do the manufacturer advise to buy the minimum torque (cheaper) servos to sell the kit or are they on the spot ?

depends on the manufacturer and the air frame.....and your flight style. most suggesting the big torque specs are gettin a big price and want to cover their keisters. bought a h9 33% extra and the manual called for 80oz servos....180 if ya want to be 3d capable. I doubled it. we run bigger servos on a 30 cc now. not sure what the formula is but if you are gonna push it, get the strongest you can afford. high quality airframes will usually give a honest answer on servo requirement.

It sort of depends on what you are needing, your budget, and so on. I tend to use only Futaba servos in my better planes. I sort of feel that if I have a big expensive plane, an expensive engine, then why would I go cheap and put in cheap servos in it.

But I have dabbled with other brand servos in some planes though. I was pleasantly impressed with the magnetic feedback position sensor servos that Hobby Kings sells. The ones I got all work quite well. I also experimented with some metal gear Hextronic servos from Hobby King too. Those have turned out to be pretty good so far. But usually the cheap servos use low cost components so I don't know how well they'll hold up after a long time.

Now I did try some other off brand servos from Hobby Partz and although they started out OK, and worked OK, they started to exude a burned electrical odor, so I stopped using them and replaced the servos with better ones in the plane. I did leave one servo in as the throttle servo to see if it would die or not, but it is still working though. I do have a optical switch in the plane so if the throttle servo quits I can still kill the engine. It is a small gas engine using standard size servos, so it isn't very big.

I have pulled planes out of the storage shed to re-use them, and the cheap off brand servos usually have goine bad or are acting flaky. But the major brand name servos still work fine, no problem.

Always use servos with more torque or more servos than the manufacture recomends. The servo will last longer, less chance of a failer, you'll use less power because the servo/s won't have to work as hard, And the setup will last a long time.

300 oz is lot especially for a 50cc plane.

Originally Posted by scott m lyons

Always use servos with more torque or more servos than the manufacture recomends. The servo will last longer, less chance of a failer, you'll use less power because the servo/s won't have to work as hard, And the setup will last a long time.

Great analogy.....my next 30cc airframe will have all Seiko's ... even throttle......hopefully this will be enough

for me, the XQ 4020's and the Power HD 9150's have been a great value. I don't have a lot of time on any of them, nor do I fly aggressive 3D. They both center well, and have gobs of torque on the 50cc size planes that I fly.

Originally Posted by flyin4fun

Great analogy.....my next 30cc airframe will have all Seiko's ... even throttle......hopefully this will be enough

LOL ! MAke sure to use two or three per surface

Thanks for your answers. They are appreciated.

I thought that if I bought stronger than needed servos now I would always use them later as my models tend to get bigger and not smaller. Would the servo total weight increase be a problem ?

What about PowerBox, Power Expander and so on. Are they necessary or nice to have ?

Thanks again

Toget more exposure and answers, I am going to transfer the Power question in the main forum.

funny you should post.

I just got back in to the hobby after about 25 years, MAN how it has changed.
I always had futaba servos and radios. and never had an issue, BUT today, I am running better larger aircraft. " I have more money now " I purchased a h9 Suhkoi. with the digital spektrum servos already installed. This is my 1st experance with them and anything other than futaba.

Shortly after the build. the throttle servo burned up, " I think this was my fault " Today I have 8 models range from 40 stick. to the Suhkoi. I have always went with futaba, But like earlyer post. it seems that it's what is called for.

I think it's like the ole Ford Chevy thing. if you ran with Ford all your life, and they have been good to you, WHY change ?

I have looked into the futaba sbus servos, and configuration. and WOW, I'm really not to interested in spending 2,000.00 on servos.

But with this being said. my nest project is a Mustang, I plan on running all futaba digitals.

best of luck to you in your decission

Originally Posted by Gobeil

Having been out of the hobby for 15 years, I have to catch up on the reliable servos as I plan to built a 50cc 3D plane. I do not need to know which servos are better than the others !

Please, this is not a brand war and I do not need to know if a brand is better or worse than the other.


I would like to know which specific servos are "great value for money" and very reliable.
If I read a thread on Hitecs, they are the best. If I read another thread on Savox, again they are the best. If I read a thread on Futaba, ...........

I just need to know which specific large scale servos are known to fail or not center and hence "not ot be used".

So, could you just tell me if you have had failures with a specific model of servos and what happened ?

Thanks

You know this is going to be subjective right?

Example. I use mostly Futaba servo's, never had one fail. Other brands Have problems in my hands. Dymond locked up on rudder, fried. End points were set conservatively.
Wore out one Hyperion DS20 on a patternplane aileron.

A pal of mine used Futaba BLS 155's ohos ailerons and after a motor lug broke on JC Evo 60 one of servo's starting jittering and he started to experience blow back on that aileron. Hereplaced the 18Kg servo with 30 Kg Blue Bird Coreless digital servo's and swears by them now. The bee's knees he calls them. He was so angry with the Futaba's he claims to have thrown them away <Smacks forehead>

Now we have two different people with different experience of a product and therefore poles apart in opinion on what reliability is....