Title pretty much says it all. I've gone through about 20 of these now and am getting tired of constantly having to replace them. About 1/2 of the time it is my fault due to crashing, particularly on the FT-22 (full size) and fT-Delta. Basically if I wind up crashing (ground, tree, coming in too hot on a belly landing) at least one of the servos is toast.
But I've definitely had them strip mid-flight on my fT22 and on my bix3. On the bix 3 It was the flaps servo that stripped so I was able to save it by switching off flaps quickly. On the FT-22, it just spiraled in after it was stripped. I can accept that crashing damages planes and that is part of the hobby. But if I can spend less time repairing, I can spend more time flying. Many times the only damage to the plane is the stripped aervo; otherwise it is ready to just pop back up in the air.
So really 2 questions:
1) Is it possible I just got a bad batch of these? I ordered them all (24) at the same time. But I've also read that these are basically crap and you can expect stripped gears as part of the bargain price.
2) if I upgrade to some beefier metal gear servos, can I realistically expect to spend less time repairing, or am I just going to move the failure point to something else like a servo arm, control horn or (worst case) control surface?
Thanks in advance for guidance!
ETA: It occurs to me that the FT22 elevons and the bix3 flaps are both very high loads, so maybe I'm expecting too much out of cheap servos. On the bix3 I love going stupid slow/short on landings with full flaps set at about 60deg deflection. And I'm not shy about whipping the FT22 around when doing aerobatics.
But I've definitely had them strip mid-flight on my fT22 and on my bix3. On the bix 3 It was the flaps servo that stripped so I was able to save it by switching off flaps quickly. On the FT-22, it just spiraled in after it was stripped. I can accept that crashing damages planes and that is part of the hobby. But if I can spend less time repairing, I can spend more time flying. Many times the only damage to the plane is the stripped aervo; otherwise it is ready to just pop back up in the air.
So really 2 questions:
1) Is it possible I just got a bad batch of these? I ordered them all (24) at the same time. But I've also read that these are basically crap and you can expect stripped gears as part of the bargain price.
2) if I upgrade to some beefier metal gear servos, can I realistically expect to spend less time repairing, or am I just going to move the failure point to something else like a servo arm, control horn or (worst case) control surface?
Thanks in advance for guidance!
ETA: It occurs to me that the FT22 elevons and the bix3 flaps are both very high loads, so maybe I'm expecting too much out of cheap servos. On the bix3 I love going stupid slow/short on landings with full flaps set at about 60deg deflection. And I'm not shy about whipping the FT22 around when doing aerobatics.
Last edited: