TonyBuilder

My Feedback: (11)

TBM HD120 servos

Hi, so I wanted to see if others have any info or if anyone has had the problems I am having. I have been using the HD120 digital servos in my planes. I have had a few servo failures, none that have cost me my plane, very lucky I guess!
What has been happening is they work fine one day and the next time I go fly and turn on my plane a servo dies, stops working, dead as a doornail. I contacted TBM and they have replaced the servos I sent in with the same HD120s. I was concerned but being I have about 20 of them scattered threw out my fleet I just took a deep breath and held it recently on a new plane at the field ready to go on the maiden I was checking the control surfaces for correct throw and direction ( per flight), when as I was flipping the ruder back and forth it just stopped working, all other servos worked (Futabas). This was a brand new servo. Very disappointed I started to break down the plane to put it up and turned it back on to pull my gear up, and the servo started to work again. I have witnesses to the servo stopping so I am not crazy .

I talked with Bill at TBM about this before and asked if there was something wrong in my set up, 6v nmH 2000. He said that nothing sounded out of the norm. Most of the servos that failed just stopped working at start up, ( never came to life when turned on) I did have two in ailerons act up, work, stop working and then died. So after this last death I contacted Bill at TBM and told him that I was very concerned with the 15 servos that are in my planes and asked him to replace them with the analog HD1501 servos, I haven't had any failures with those! At first he said sure, just send them in and he would swap them. Then I get an email saying " sorry I can't swap the working servos just the broken ones". Needles to say this is not right and I am upset.

The servo in question has been discontinued most likely because it is defective and they should recall or replace them if a costumer has had multiple failures, or request them to be exchanged. So my question is has anyone had this problems or I'm I the only one?

TB

pdm52956

My Feedback: (1)

I personally have had problems with the HD line of servos but not the 120 since I've never used them. The first set of HD I tried were the 9150. Suppose to be great but in fact just about cost me a new 50cc Edge on the 3rd flight. NEVER, did I mention NEVER, will I use an HD servo again.

Some say that where you purchase them from makes a difference. The perception is/was that good ones went to some distributors while the lessor quality ones went to others. I don't know, seems a bit questionable if you ask me after all, why even send lessor quality items out and take a chance of a bad reputation?

Now that isn't to say people haven't had success with the HD line. Just to say that I haven't and won't go that road again.

Your mileage may vary..............

K-Bob

My Feedback: (1)

If you haven't realized it yet, and have never heard it said before........................ you get what you pay for.

I would start replacing them as I could sfford to one by one.

TonyBuilder

My Feedback: (11)

Realize that now, I'm fairly new to the hobby and have learned now what are the good venders and what are the flakes. TBM offered to swap them out for the 1501 but I will be giving them back over $250 in servos to get the $13 servo. After thinking about it I am just going to right them off and stick with Futaba, gues I asked for it by cheating on Futaba in the first place!

TB

condor123

My Feedback: (20)

I bought about 12 of these(120's) being I was building a lot of planes and was trying to save money. I found any binding of the throw would burn out the servo also if I used a long servo arm it caused a lot of play on the spline ruining the servo within a couple flights.

jimmyjames213

My Feedback: (2)

use them as throttle servos and call it a lesson learned