toothman

My Feedback: (1)

im checking some old spectrum servos and the make a weird clicking noise when tilted one way or the other. they were in a crashed airplane. there are no missin teeth. the click sounds like a dull one. it is almost like it cannot center itself. the noise is continuous when they are in motion or not. when tilted the clicking gets worse and more rapid. i took the top off and the servo wheels just slowly turn one way or the other. any idea on what is wrong?

kenh3497

Do the servos follow the motion of the transmitter stick? When the TX stick is at neutral are the gears still turning? It may be someone had the servos apart and did not get the feedback pot in sync with the rest of the servo.

Ken

toothman

My Feedback: (1)

the servos do follow the motion of the transmitter. when the tx is neutral the gears slowly move but the arms do not move.

kenh3497

That is odd the gears move but the arms do not. I vote for a missing tooth or two someplace in the gear train. The clicking is the teeth "jumping". Is there a possibility of posting a video of your servo in action?

thailazer

It sounds like it sustained damage in the crash you mention. The case was probably twisted on impact causing some internal damage. If it was my servo, I would trash it and replace it with a new one.

toothman

My Feedback: (1)

so i hooked up all my servos to the rx again and i noticed that the small clicking sound goes away when i move the tx about 6+ inches away from the servos. i guess having the controller to close cause them to not center? what causes this? i moved the sticks and the arms moved like they were new.

kenh3497

The signal from the TX is swamping the RX making it do funny things. Do a GOOD range check to confirm that part is good. Put a load on the servos, like a small weight and make sure the move their full range with out slipping or stop moving. Go here http://www.servodatabase.com/servos/all to see how much torque your servos should have.

Ken

acerc

I can't believe there is even a thought as to use a crashed and making a funny sound servo. And I thought I was cheap.

thailazer

toothman..... Putting the transmitter antenna that close to your servos is not a fair test. All electronic devices have RF Suspeptability which is a term that describes an RF signal or multiple signals getting into the circuitry and causing the design to not work properly. The level of radio frequency energy can become too high for circuits to work properly. Move your transmitter back several meters and than look for proper servo operation.

With the above said, if only ONE of your servos exhibits this clicking noise with the transmitter up close, than I would worry about an RF bypass capacitor that may have become loose inside the servo, increasing that servo's RF Suseptability. They should all behave about the same.

After a crash, check servos for physical damage, check the wires carefully for nicks, check the connectors for cracks or problems, and then slowly cycle the servos from one end to the other. Not worth taking a risk if anything is not feeling normal.

klord125

Been there and done it. Do yourself a favor and don't use it!!! A 15.00 dollar servo is not worth a couple hundred dollar or more airplane with motor and gear. Just my .02 Ken