Micro servos. What's up??

[Biff]

Okay guys, I'd like to get some info on what's hot for small electric servos. What's the deal? So many choices and it seems the prices are pretty reasonable. Who has the best prices and are digitals the way to go?? Help an idiot out!

[Temptation]

Biff,

This is just my opinion from what I have experienced with my own equipment. I have used Hitec HS55's, HS56's, and JR digital DS281's.

The HS55's work good, they have decent centering and speed. The HS56's are a little faster, and have a little more torque. The HS56's also have the carbonite gear set. This gear set is good and bad. They are a little stronger than the standard nylon gears, but I have found that they are brittle. When they do break the broken piece almost always seems to get jamed up and locks the servo in a very bad postiiton (Murphy's law). When the nylon servos strip, most of the time you can get the control surface back to neautral.

The JR DS281's are nice. They have good centering, torque and speed. I don't know if digital is really necessary for foamies or not. I haven't really felt an advantage while flying. The one thing I don't like about the JR mini digitals, is that they use standard size arms. They are big and heavy. I will be putting the JR DS281's in my Fliton Quiet Storm (small electric pattern plane). I don't feel like I am wasting a good digital servo in that plane. Foamies flex to much in my opinion to really be able to take advantage of a good centering servo. The Quiet Storm is a built up plane that I think may be able to take advantage of a good digital servo.

There is a lot more servos out there, but those are the ones that I have experience with. Hope this helps.

Mike Darr

[Kiwi]

Biff old mate.

I just took delivery of my new SPEKTRUM radio and it has four S75 mini servos in the box. Just giving them a tug and twist they look to be fairly beefy for the size. The output pinion and bull gear appears to be quite a bit more beefy than the H55's I have always used.

I suppose the proof will be in the testing as I intend to hook these up on the Extreme 300E that should arrive this week.

I have also used some super small servos I got from Don Shulman at last years Nall. They were extremely small and are still running to this day in a LARS MODELS foamie. They would be 30% smaller and lighter than the H55 from memory.

You know I think the mini servo thing is like pandoras box. There are dozens out there in the big old world.

So come on guys lets get some more names, comments suppliers etc in here. Biff is on a mission.

Kiwi

[aerojack]

I too have had my best luck with Hitecs HS-55 and Don Shulmans ultra mini or 'Polk'. For performance I would have to give #1 to Shulmans 'polk' mini servo as it is lighter than the 55 and just as powerfull and is even rated a tad quicker. Although I fly many more 55's due to their pricing. As for digitals I cannot comment as I have never flown a foamie with a digital

[sprice50]

HS56s seem to be tried, tested and proven in micro helis. I got some for my TRex and my foamie. I never had luck with the hs55s as the gears seemed a little weak. Also had some GWS Naro HP BB+ servos which lasted around 250 flights with extreme abuse. I'd go for the 56s though.

[Carlos_M]

Biff,

I have used the next servos: Dymond D44 MG digital, Simprop SES 85, Jamara Atom Mini Blue and JR/Graupner C1081.

Dymond and Jamara are the best in terms of weight (around 5 grams). I would not recommend Jamara as it has an "erratic" functioning.

I only have good words for Simprop and JR servos excepting that they are weighty.

Dymond is among the bests in terms of speed, precision and repeatability, despite being a digital servo it does not have more torque than other analog servos neither it is more precise but it is capable of holding better the selected position.

In any case, I am still looking for a 5 grams servo with similar quality than a 45 gr standard servo. All the micro servos I have analized suffer of either poor quality potentiometer or electronics. I would say Dymond are the best servos I have tested but still not comparable to a standard servo like Futaba 3001.

Hope this helps.

Carlos Martin

[F3AFlyer7]

Somthing has disturbed me about the S-75 Spektrum servos. As soon as I got the transmitter I pulles the servos out and stuffed one of them in a foamy. After running the servo, I noticed that the entire pinion would lift off the gears and spin without moving the servo. This would cause the surface to deflect extremely far in one direction. I figured it was a fluke so I removed it. After installing another S-75, it ended up doing the exact same thing. Anyone else had this problem? I love the HS-55's and have had no issue whatsoever. Also the GWS Pico servos are great too. Haven't tried Bluebird but suppposed to be good. The 4 gram ones are great for getting things super light.

[Carlos_M]

Scott,

The issue you described also happened to me with one Dymond D44 micro servo. This is a manufacturer defect so you have the option to return the servo to your supplier or try to repair it by yourself.

The root cause is that due to por manufacturing tolerances, the retainer of the shaft of the main gear (which pass through a rectangular slot in the feedback potentiometer) gives too much play to the shaft and therefore it
can disconnect from the potentiometer if the servo arm is lifted for any reason.

I was not able to repair my servo (one failed of a set of 10 I bought) since the moment that could not manage to dismounting the retainer.

I would recommend you to test any servo before you buy it in the future, you just need to push and pull the servo arm in the gears shaft direction, if you feel more than 1mm of movement then discard the servo.

[xtremeRCpilot]

I use the HS 55's and JR 241's and love um both. The 55s are much faster but the 241s have more torque. I still havent found a 5gram servo I like, so any suggestions would be apprieciated for all.

[GremlinX]

HS 56 is solid.BlueBird 371's are also solid and cheaper. I also like the E-flight Micro's as well. For stronger micros...Hitec 81's and 85's are very solid for the size and weight. What is Biff building?

[Uncle Brett]

Hitec's new HS65's are supposed to be the shiz. I haven't tried them but I've heard good things, very torquey and fast and at 11 grams only a g over a HS55. I have a bunch of HS56's and like them well enough but like Temtation said, the carbonite gears are brittle. I was hoping the new 65's would have metal gears but they also have carbonite. JR's 281 digis are great to use on 2lb. planes that have a large rudder and elevator because of blow back, and they center well but like their non-digi brother the 241, they're very slow unless you run them at 6V. As far as the 5g servos go I like the Dymond's and Bluebirds (Waypoint?). Planes over 2lbs. to 4lbs I run HS 81 MG's. This is just what I've found so far that works for me and your mileage may vary.

[Flatlandman]

Another option that has proven to be the best mini servo for me is the MPI 50 hd for large foamies and the mpi 30 for shockies.Ihave had exp with the non digi jrs, hs55, hs56 and very limited sirus 4.4 exp. i would liek to use some 4.4 s more but the others have proven them selfs and im werry of spending more $ on sommin else.

I have bashed the *** out of these mpi sub micros and never stripped one. My friend who turned me on to these has use them also and only striped one dou to a harsh crash with a mini funtana .

I only bring these to your attention because not many people know about them and i dont want them to get discontinued.

[3Dkid330]

I agree, the MX 30's are great for smaller indoor foamies. We bought a handful of used ones for $20 at a swap meet, was well worth it. I have three on my Tensor, they all work flawlessly. I have one MX 50, but I don't have the arm for it. I wouldn't hesitate to try more of the MPI's out in the future.

Brandon

[Flatlandman]

the best mpi 50 is the ones labeled HD more tor. and speed same weight