Flyfalcons

You need to have the wings installed when running the engine. They will help absorb the vibration that a gasser will put out.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

The wings attenuate (absorb, if you will) much vibration. Running the engine without them firmly attached stresses the fuselage. Don't do it.

I have the same combo you do, and my flying buddy, who has experience with several other brands of 50cc gassers, says the BME seems to be quite a bit smoother (as in, less vibration) then the others; including his Brison 3.2 on a WH Extra 300.

Keep a close eye on your low end running. After about a gallon, mine would no longer hold a reliable idle below 2800 rpm (BME 22x8 wood prop) and had a widening "rough spot" just below half throttle. Above half throttle, it ran like a top.

The trouble was a bad resisitor and spark plug cap. I had no clue myself, so I sent it back to Keith. Apparently, the Falkon ignition modules have been coming with these bad resistors. Not all, but enough for it to be a problem seen more than once, according to Keith. It was driving me nuts, so be aware. The engine seems to run fine now, although five minutes into the first flight after I got it back, the steenkin' rudder counterbalance departed in flight...

If your rudder begins to wag unexplainedly in flight... well, that's what mine did before breaking. The rudder is rather flimsily built. I have a new one en-route.

The rest of the plane seems okay, although I did use over half a bottle of medium CA, going over every glue joint I could get to. That's cheap insurance. This genre of airplane (not just the H9; most of the other brands I've looked at are equally "lightly built") is made as light as possible to satisfy the weight-conscious 3d guys, and they all could be a bit sturdier, IMO.

And keep a close eye on the gear; it is 'Chinese carbon fiber' and prone to delaminating. Mine actually cracked; and NOT because of a hard landing.

But the airplane flies beautifully. You'll turn your nose up at your smaller planes, once you get comfortable with your Extra...

camss69

My Feedback: (46)

"You'll turn your nose up at your smaller planes, once you get comfortable with your Extra... "

That's the truth...

codemanx

My Feedback: (13)

ddierking, I would make sure that your prop is balanced and make sure the hub of the prop is balanced too.

It is a good rule like the others mentioned to run your plane with the wings on. This will keep the whole plane a lot more stable. Also, I would invest in some loctite.. I loctite every screw, nut, and bolt. Gasser vibrate everything..

This should help make your new gasser a lot more fun!

Later
CodemanX

cwhite

My Feedback: (42)

Just finished mine up with a ZDZ 40, Hitec 5945 on rudder, 5645 on ailerons and JR8411's on elevator. Havent flown it yet but I'm kinda curious about the 5645's. They don't seem to want to center. When the ailerons are in full down and return to center they don't go all the way back. Anybody else have problems with these servos. I'm kinda anal about things so this is driving me nuts!

codemanx

My Feedback: (13)

Cwhite, I have you put those servos on a programer?

CodemanX

camss69

My Feedback: (46)

At the risk of starting a brand war... I bought those same Hitec servos, and mounted them in my plane, and I had the exact same problem.. so they went back to Tower, which refunded my money and I have 8411's all the way around now. I never attempted to fly them due to the incredibly poor centering, I no longer have that problem with the JR servos, and I won't be buying Hitec anything anymore. They say the 59xx series are pretty good, so you might just want to swap out your ailerons, and give the one on rudder a go since you already have it.

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

I have 5945's all around on mine. The 59xx series like other people have said kick some butt! The others are good for like bashers IMHO. I like the 5955's, 5945's, and 8611A's. The 8411's are alright if you dont mind some slop after a while. Wow do those gears get some play after a while.

Mine did fine with 5945's on all flight surfaces and a 5245 on the throttle. The gear train in the 59xx series is great! You can get away with 5945's all the way up to 40%.

By the way same deal with the 5945 and 5925. Just as in the 5645 and 5625 one is geared for speed and the other for torque. Myself I stripped out two 5925's on a 33% rudder. I think on any other surface they are fine.

cwhite

My Feedback: (42)

I think I'll send them back for the 5945's. The speed between the two is substantial. I haven't seen cheap non-computer servos center this poorly. By the way my Dad just finished his 73" QQ Yak and he used 5645's on his and they do the same thing. I'm not talking something that is barely noticable I'm talking up to 1/4"!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is disturbing me to the point where I don't even want to give Hitec any more of my business. Surely the company has heard of this problem. Is anything being done??????????? $100 bucks isn't much for digital servos but I think you should expect more than this.

shag555

I had a similar problem in a set of Hitec servos in a 40 sized electric... I tried everything I could imagine to figure out what was wrong... Incompatibility with Futaba, etc. It turned out that both aileron servos had the wiring pinched and broke the leads where I pushed them through the aileron servo holes.

2ndly... I have 5645's in my 260... Prior to my maiden with this plane... I decided to do some taxiing around to see how it ground handled... Damn good thing too, as one of the aileron servos came apart on the circuit board (of the servo), shorted out, and immediately drained my battery to NIL!!! This happened while turning around in one of these high speed taxi runs (fortunately). Otherwise, I wouldn't be flying this plane right now! Hitec replaced the servo free of charge, but it cost me one month of flying (that's the real bummer).

Unless you stick these things on a programmer, you may never know what's going on with them... You may want to try turning them out both ways to full servo throw (disconnected from any push rod assy). Supposedly, the older 5645's will reset by doing so.

MPB

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

The 59XX series of servos is much better than the 56XX series. I think thats more or less well known. I think Hitecs work just fine. In my planes up to 40% the 59XX series are just fine. Plenty of 3D abuse.

I could really tell the difference with the little 260 vs. the 28% planes I built and flew before. Of course 8611A's are also just awesome period. Although I think the 5955's are just as good.

My thinking is why not buy gear that you can use in your next couple planes? Like I said 5945's will take you all the way up to 40%. If you go for 5955's and 8611A's that will mean even less servos to buy when you move on. Just a thought.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

Every time I get close to trying HiTec, I see another series of posts regarding problems with them (like #2584 above). It just seems to be a recurring theme. Yes, I realize that the top-end HiTecs are supposed to be excellent; but they cost as much as the "brand name" servos, so nothing is gained there.

My hesitation is not helped by the fact that I have two friends using HiTecs who are pleased with them; and myself and one of those guys have had some recent Futaba high-end servo (9252) problems; him, two outright failures, and me two impending failures. A good pre-fight and maintenance program saved us both an airplane each.

This is just another "big airplane" consideration; in almost 20 years of flying r/c models, I NEVER had a problem with Futaba or JR servos until I got into larger-than-1.20 size models. I have a high-dollar Futaba servo right now, for rudder on my H9 Extra, that is suspect. And it has less than fifty flights on it; EASY flights, no flip-flopping, slam-dunking, etc.

So, one wonders. I'm looking for my next model, a 30% something. It will be a while before I'm ready to get it, but I'll be acquiring new servos for it; and right now, I simply do not know what to buy.

Guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it...

Tor

Steve, you contradict yourself...

They all have their problems, so why hesitate on Hitec?

Hitec is a brand name. Just choose the right servo for the application. I use 5945 and 5955 (rudder) on the Extra with no problems. 5625 on my Funtana 90 - also no probs. And I am very meticulous about centering and such - no probs with any of them.

Infact, from what I read (don't own any JR myself), the 5955 is better than i.e "brand name" JR 8611A, which develops gear slop fairly quickly.

I use an Emcotec on my Extra, and will use one on all future larger models. If one servo goes bad, it is locked out and won't drag your receiver down with it. Additionally you get a lot of redundancy and safety as well as HF interferrence suppresion etc.

wttiger42

I picked up my 260 today, and have changed my mind on the motor, im going with a similar setup to what Tor is running with the Evolution 45.


It took me forever to read most of this thread, but i learned a lot.

wttiger42

Tor, do you think the Hitec 625's would be ok in the Extra?

camss69

My Feedback: (46)

If you read the Hitec Support part of the forums you will find that there a quite a few documented problems with the 56xx and 6xx series hitec servos with centering. The part that really irritates me about it is when I called Hitec before I sent mine back, they said that they had never heard of a problem with them centering. I was told to send them in so they could be checked out. Mine were not centering by 1/8" to 1/4" every time you moved the sticks. I wouldn't use em, use the 59xx or 9xx or another brand. In my experience the only servo failures I've ever had (3) were all Hitec servos. That's why I hesitate on Hitec. (well I don't hesitate, I just don't buy) Some people claim to be very happy with them and "never had a problem" I guess I'm just not one of them.

Stric

Hi Guys
I too am building a h9 Extra 260 using HS5645s for aileron and elevator. I started setting up my linkages for ailerons first of the week and noticed that my ailerons did not come back to dead center much like CWhite's. This problem has been worrying me most of the week and I think I may have figured out what is causing my troubles and it may help others so here it goes.
Tonight I tightened everything up as much as possible I am using SWB arms at the servo and I tightened the little bolt on the arm good, tightened the servo horn screw, and tightened the servo mounting screws. All of this helped but I was still not perfect so using the Hitec programmer I adjusted the dead ban to 1, as tight as poss. It was set at 2 from the factory. Still not perfect but in working the servo from stop to stop and back to center I noticed that sometimes the servos would slowly ease to center. Could it be the radio(7C)?
The Hitec programmer can be pluged into the receiver to read the signal that is being sent to the servos so I hooked it up and when I go left and ease back to center the center # is usually 1515, but with right the center # is 1525. Now I don't know exactly what these #s mean or how the servo interprets them but I do know they should be the same.
So I hook the servo to the programmer and manually dial to these #s and there is my centering problem.

Now what does this mean? are the pots in my 7C dirty or is this as good as it gets with a 7C.

What do you guys think am I on to something or just chasing my tail? And should my radio go off to Futaba for a tune up? This is my first airplane over a 46 size Funtana and I suspect I have had this problem all along and it is just amplified because of these big control surfaces.


CWhite do you have access to a programmer so you could check your transmitter's signal?

Anyway thats where I am,

Mark

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

I wish I could help you! I fly the JR 9303 Heli. Very fine resolution and tons of adjustments. More or less everything the 10x has.

The 5955's have Titanium Gears in them which are supposed to last longer than the 8611A's. FWIW the gear slop happened sooner in the 8611's and not the A's. For the price they are really the same with perhaps a slight edge going to the 5955's. I think either of the two servos is excellent and also more than plenty for whatever you can throw at this plane. Remember that if you run HUGE servo arms you are taking away the mechanical advantage of the servo right off.

With JR I think I can set my end points to be like 120 and then throws to be like 150% max in either direction. A lot of room to work with.

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

Perhaps it read that way. Okay, I'll add this; HiTec servos have a very unsatisfactory track record in helicopters. I haven't been keeping up with the heli boards in quite some time, but over the years most references to HiTec and helicopters was negative. Couple that with the fact that I have seen more negative threads regarding HiTecs, on various fixed wing AND heli forums, than Futaba or JR. And, I have seen the evidence of problems locally, but as I said, some here like them.

So, like it or not, right or wrong, the above is the source of my reticence. It is not "contradictory" to me...

mudpuppy

I used 5925s for my ailerons and elevators and plan to use a 5945 (if I can find one) for the rudder of my 260.

My question is: What will a servo programer do for me? They are not cheap! Are they worth the expense?

shag555

You really don't need one... I bought one and have yet to use it. Just haven't had the time or found it necessary to start screwing around with something that works just fine as it is. My new plane will get the programmer treatment though. From the sounds of it, I'll be using the 59XX series in this next bird I'm putting together.

MPB

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

5945's are a dime a dozen. Although last time I checked in my closet or behind the desk I didnt have any just randomly around...lol.

Its a hobby so there is no right or wrong. Fly what you like. I have had airframes fail long before my Hitec servos had problems!
Setup is also a big part of the pie. If you dont setup properly then you probably wont have an awesome experience with anything. Also consider that if they are 100 times more of brand X something out there than brand Y, it only makes sense that there will be MORE problems of something that is being used MORE.

So I guess its 8611A's for everyone then

LSP972

My Feedback: (13)

Are you suggesting that there are more HiTec servos in use than Futaba and JR?

I don't think so...

camss69

My Feedback: (46)

That's why I bought the Hitec's in the first place, because I figured there were more in use, and of course there would be more problems, and probably there was something wrong with the way people were setting them up, and they can't all be bad can they? Boy was I wrong...

airborneSGT

My Feedback: (15)

The servos in the military stuff said Hitec on them. Not sure if thats classified or not. The smaller flying stuff anyways.

For me the 5945's and 5955's have been just fine. Im sure I could buy some cheaper Futaba or JR servos and have just as much bad luck with anything.

I guess the 5945 sucks so bad they have lasted two years in my 33% 260 and probably 4 years or more in my 40%.

Again people there is no right or wrong. Everyone has gotten pissed off at something or some product for some reason at some point of time.

What Futaba Servo can match either the JR 8611A or Hitec 5955?

The best match would be the S9152 which is slower, has less torque, and weighs more. Futaba needs to get with the times with their servos.