CafeenMan

Why did you have to buy 50 of them before you realized they were horrible servos?

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

We have some strong opinions here for sure. Being a father of 4 teenagers I obviously have to watch my hobby budget. My issue is that I have been a competition R/C pilot for over 30 years. I have high expectations for the performance of each airplane. If I drive 200 or more miles to go to a contest and do poorly because of poor equipment selection I come home feeling the trip ( and the money spent in gas, food and lodging ) was a waste. This is why I am very particular in equipment selection. I will pay extra money for something I know is going to work up to my expectations. If I am unsure and can't get enough information to back up the product I may order one and see how it performs in a beater model. However I do not expect everyone to have the same expectations. The Hitec 5645 was mentioned earlier in this thread. One opinion was it is a good servo, another opinion was that it was slow, sloppy and did not center ( the latter being my opinion as well). We all have different expectations. As long as you are happy with the way your model operates and above all you are being safe then it's all good. I do believe that the name brands do offer a higher level,of R&D, QC and customer service. The end price has more behind it then the cost of production, you have to figure in the cost of support as well.

jester_s1

I have some experience with both good stuff and cheap stuff. I've been flying my Kaos for about 3 years now. I outfitted it with good stuff- a TT .46 Pro engine, Hyperion LiFe battery, Airtronics radio gear, and Futaba digital servos. I could have spent more on it for sure, but I bought components with a good track record. So far, I've had zero issues after several hundred flights. Ditto for my Ugly Stick and a few other glow planes over the last few years. I buy well established products with good reputations, and I don't have trouble. I've also bought some cheap stuff. I got a Stryker with good ESC and motor, but I used Zippy batteries for $8 each. The batteries never performed like others I saw at the airfield, and they became unusable after about 50 cycles. I had a helicopter I wanted to do up on the cheap, so I bought Solar servos. Two of the four that I bought died within 4 months, luckily caught in a pre-flight inspection. The ESC for that heli was dead when I got it too (E-sky). I won't be doing that again. I had a Magnum engine for a while that ran ok but never made the power than a comparable OS or TT would have. Pretty much a waste IMO. You'll find plenty of stories of cheap ESCs burning up for no reason and you'll find that cheap electric motors are frequently out of balance and will never give you the same efficiency as a higher quality item. I could continue, but the point is made well enough. We frequently can get away with cheap stuff if we've allowed enough slop in the system to compensate for lowered performance or we're just bashing around, but for an item that you really want to get all the potential out of or will use a lot, it's a waste of money to buy cheap stuff.

RiverLarry

By cheep By Often all ways give the A/P the best chance it has for more then 1 flight
$ 700.00 plain L/G $550.00 $450.00 motor RX at $200.00 and then 8 servos at $10.00 don't sounds like a good move to me !!!
save till you can get the good stuff My $0.02 R/L

TomCrump

Geeze ! Look who popped out of the woodwork !

RiverLarry

Hay Tom yes we live it was touch and go with the river but we made it

some CABONS below me had 42" of water in then but I am a little on hi ground !!! R/L

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

Cheap to one person may not be cheap to another. I cannot always equate price to quality. Just because you pay more does not mean you get more quality. Certainly in some cases you do get more quality, but again you cannot set it as a baseline.

Some of my best quality parts are middle of the road and not high end. I do find that the extremely el-cheapo stuff is usually junk qualtiy and have seen that most of my life and rarely do I get satisfaction when buying on that end of the spectrum.

sensei

There are name brand suppliers and manufacturer's you can trust far more then many in both performance and service, their products usually cost more Initially, but well worth the money up front and the only way I roll when outfitting one of my planes.

Bob

3136

Hmm that's interesting, I would like your opinion in 5 years.

c131frdave

I"m on my third year, no issues at all.

Rocketman612

My Feedback: (85)

It all boils down to " God gave us free will to make bad choices"

There will always be those out there who will skimp. We recently had a rash of Orange Rx related crashes among multiple pilots and airframes and overnight their use disappeared. Same for servos. So it's always going to happen in a free market.

Do what I do. Know the fellas using cheap and when they go to fly sit and spectate.

Pete

CafeenMan

There's something else to this as well and to me it's a matter of integrity.

Say a well-established company who makes products that cost more but have an excellent reputation is basically ripped off by another company who takes the product, reverse engineers it and then sells it for a fraction of what the first company does. The company that ripped off the product obviously just saved a ton of money on development costs but their product may work pretty much the same as the first company's product.

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

I hate HS5645MG

Exactly. Why are you going to put digital servos in a war bird? Do you think you will see a difference?
The manual says 50oz servos. Im with you. Maybe I have been bran washed to as I would not go below 100oz but a 160oz is way over kill

I got my Top Flight Gaint P51 from a good buddy who passed away and it had 3004 plastic gear futaba servos. I few it 3 times and while it flew great I upgraded to HS645mg all around for peace of mind.

I will also say I have lost 2 very nice planes to HS5645mg servos. Not a servo I will use anymore

But every manufacturer as there issue. I got 2 brand new futaba 3305 in the elevons of my Turbines Byron F16 and you can see that they both dont move to full deflection at the same time. But in the air at 170mph you would never know

mikes68charger

My Feedback: (34)

One thing I think people forget is were a lot of people are in this hobby

Im in the Army and had to go away from 3 months of school so the wife took me to our hobbies shop and spent almost $700 for a new Trex 450 with batterys and parts. That sucker crashed alot.

Even though I was still crahing it I got a Trex600 pro and have over 300 flights with no crashes.

So can you say the 450 was junk? Or is it the fact the 600 was more stable and easy to see

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

Being cheap! And because many of them came in airplanes i bought second hand new from friends that liked them and the deal was worth buying the planss RTF and throwing out the servos. And because after 2-3 years of not using those servos, i figured i woukd give them another shot.. And i never really knew HoW bad they were until i started flying more expensive servo's.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

You cant blame not getting to full deflection at the same time entirely on the servo, linkage geometry comes into play to, but its very possibly it IS the servo.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

The NiB ones i have say made in Malaysia, granted they are almost 2 years old and discontinued.... Go Figure!

karolh

I recently bought some Futaba S3010 servos and it is clearly marked on the cases, made in China.

karolh

Does anyone know where Solar servos are made??

raptureboy

Wisdom for the ages.


The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweet taste of a cheap deal.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

Pay now or pay later.

You can have good, and you can have cheap, but rarely do you get good and cheap.

If you plant a $100 tree then dig a $100 hole.

A fool and his money are soon departed.

speedracerntrixie

My Feedback: (29)

I once knew a club member that replaced the JR 8611 servos in his 50cc Yak with Hitec 5645 servos. Can you guess the result? I felt somewhat responsible as I had just pulled all the 8611's out of my 3M Extra 260 and installed Hitec 5955's ( Yes it was a while ago ) because I was tired the 8611 gears wearing out every 6 months. I was flying 3 days a week and wanted titanium geared servos. Flew the 260 another year before selling it without even having to think about the servos.

chiggerbite

Others have said the same thing here. But... you have to ask yourself: "What's most valuable to me?"

To me, it's my time.

When making hardware selections, I spend an inordinate amount of time researching. I read reviews, forums, talk to hobby shops, fellow pilots, etc.. when I'm building or making a part selection. The internet is our friend... and there is a wealth of information out there on the products we're talking about. If you do the research, you may find that the best part for the situation isn't always the most expensive.

I may build a cheap foamie that I just want to dink around with, test different airfoils/designs, etc. In those cases, yes.. I'm going to put sub-par hardware in it as I see it as a disposable plane. On the contrary, if I spend a lot of time building a beautiful aircraft that I see as a piece of art as much as a radio control aircraft, I'm going to make sure I get the right parts for the job in it (and those parts aren't always the most expensive).

I think a lot of folks just don't spend enough time researching what they're buying. If you take the time up front to do this research, you may find that you can get quality without breaking the bank.

chistech

I personally fly middle of the road aircraft. Nothing real big and only a few that have had a lot of work put into them. I almost never buy a new motor for my planes. I like used four strokes and some of my fellow club members think I'm crazy buying "someone's junk" as they call it. I like to take them apart, install new bearings and re-set the valves. Most of the naysayers have now changed their minds as my engines run and idle perfectly. I have saved a lot of money buying used engines. I will buy Saitos, OS, Enyas, and sometimes even Magnums. I have nothing against the YS but don't need the performance in my warbirds (I like to fly scale mostly) and the closed fuel system to me is a PITA. I will also buy used quality radio gear as I will send it in for a check up with Horizon. Most of the time there has never been an issue with any piece I've bought.

I fly float planes also and some are electric. I have a few flying on the orange receivers and have a couple or Spektrums. I lost a Widgeon in the middle of a low pass roll with the spektrum yet the planes with the HK orange are still going without issue. I believe sometimes stuff just happens. Some will have great luck with items and others will have issues. As far as the radio gear goes gone is the day that they are made in Japan. Very few items unless very high end are still made there by the likes of Futaba or JR. Perhaps a few years back JR should have been MR for Malaysian Radio control. Now they should also be CR for China Radio! LOL

jbarnes

Maybe its the fact that folks that focus on quality also focus on a quality build making the whole package much more likely to stand the test of time. Hobby King parts are fine for smaller planes but I don't know of anyone flying a 100cc bird with orange receivers or HobbyKing servos. The newer technology which reduces failure rates can only be found in the more expensive lines. When it comes to gear slop, centering and speed the better numbers will cost your more bucks!

sensei

For that very reason I would not spend a dime with them, they have no integrity.

Bob