RCU Forums - SERVO repair as well as Rx repair after crash?

Dear Fellow RCU'ers:

The PIPE here once more...and if anyone here has been checking my posts very recently, you'd know about a SOLAR GLARE caused CRASH, back in mid-September 2003, of my one and ONLY currently flyable RC plane, my dear old veteran 1980s vintage Balsa USA Swizzle Stick 40 :( ...

My RC club (at http://www.wingbusters.org/ ) allows "fueled engine powered" RC flying as EARLY as 7:30 am every day of the year, and during a Sunday early morning flying session, coming upwind (the runway orientation at my club's field is NNW-SSE) with a northwest wind VERY LIGHTLY blowing at well under 10 mph, my "Swizzler" managed to get LOST IN THE SUN at the early hour of 8 am, with a fair bit of HAZE to add to any potential visibility problem...and after "wallowing about" IN that haze, trying to re-orient myself back to the runway and with me wearing NO sunglasses to reduce the glare http://www.computerpannen.com/cwm/otn/shocked/eek.gif I was forced to "dump" the model in a gourd patch that was about a good five minute walk from the southern end of the runway.

The damage, fortunately, seem to be VERY SLIGHT indeed! Only the spring steel tail gear broke free from the fuselage, and could not be found, and the receiver and Sanyo 1650 mAH NiMH airborne battery pack managed to shatter the 1/8th inch liteply front surface of the "cabin" on the Swizzler's fuse as they SHOT forward from the force of the crash. The wing, which was rubberbanded in place, popped off as it was meant to do, but the right wing panel managed to impact one of the gourds at about mid-span AFTER it broke away from the fuselage, and dented in the leading edge of the wing about 1/8th inch, as well as slightly cracking the leading edge balsa sheeting AND cracking two of the wing ribs right behind where the wing hit the gourd...all in all, an AMAZINGLY small amount of damage, and a VERY repairable amount as well! But, NOW here's my main question...

I'm definitely planning to send the Hitec 3800 "shift-selectable" seven channel FM Rx that was in the plane during the crash back to Hitec for a FULL checkout to see if that crash might have damaged it-and get it repaired if needed. The battery pack is a homemade one, from Sanyo cells purchased from TNR Technical, and I'm fairly sure IT was NOT damaged in any way...but I might carefully check the connector for a partially "yanked connection" that would be easily remedied with a new Custom Electronics Futaba male servo connector.

But, the SERVOS...the two tail control servos (Hitec 225 regular gear on the elevator, and metal gear on the rudder), and the aileron servo (a single Hitec 77 low-profile unit) didn't seem to be physically damaged in any manner, and only the homemade wooden aileron "flat" orientation servo mount, which has composite plywood/carbon fiber laminate "arms" on it, had one arm break apart in the impact. The two Hitec 225 tail control servos, along with a 1980s vintage Airtronics 94461 mini servo on the throttle, are all mounted in a homemade 1/16th inch thick plywood servo tray, and NEVER MOVED from their regular installed locations during the crash. They certainly don't SEEM to have any VISIBLE physical damage on them, but could the crash have induced some INTERNAL damage on them, that wouldn't show up on the outside?

I'm going to be doing some 30-minute "examination" runs very soon with my Ace RC Datamaster servo checkout unit with the "automated servo cycling" add-on I installed in it in the early 1980s, to run each servo "end-to-end" continuously for that 30 minute period each (I also do that for each and EVERY new servo I purchase, for a form of "burn-in" time, to make certain that a new servo IS a good one) to see IF they can still operate "on the bench" with no problems. Also, a quick and CAREFUL dis-assembly of all the servos would be a good idea to catch any damaged gears or other physical damage that might be inside those servos!

The Airtrnoics servo is SO old I'm quite certain I won't be able to get IT serviced if needed, but for the Hitec units, THEY are all still very much in production, and my main question is...should I still send the Hitec servos back WITH the receiver to get checked out by the factory, even if they "bench-check" OK with the Datamaster unit?

Hoping to get some answers...and I'm certainly listening!

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE! ;)