sly1

I am adding aileron servos to an ancient Graupner Cirrus sailplane and plan on mounting the servos in the wing. The servo lead length is a little over 3 feet. I am looking for advice on receiver/servo voltage as well as the addition of chokes on the servo leads.
Has anybody had the need to operate servos with such long leads? Are chokes on the servo leads necessary?

Thanks

Crash-RCU

I have some JR standard servos with soldered leads on them that are a hair over 3' and have no problems, but you want to use the heavy duty servo wire to minimize power loss thru the wire. I don't know about digital servos as they draw more amps than analog servos.

invertmast

My Feedback: (23)

If you are running 2.4 Chokes are not needed, nor recommended as they can cause the servo not to work. As long as you use the heavy duty servo wire/leads you should be fine. I've got servo leads over 4' long in some of my jets that are feeding JR 8611/8711 servo's w/o any problems.

Rodney

I often just cut the leads and splice in the required length of extra wire. Just be sure to use large enough gage, as large or larger than the original. Chokes are not necessary, in fact may create an unnecessary problem for either 72MHz or 2.4GHz . The only time chokes would help is if the servos themselves were generating RF that would feed back to the receiver (a highly unlikely scenario).

Moggy

My Feedback: (9)

This might be a dumb question but here goes: my servos have standard gauge leads but I have HD extensions. Do I need to open the servo and solder HD wire so the entire length is HD wire. Seems odd to have HD extensions when the wire coming out of the servo isn't.

FrankFuss

Hi Moggy,

No, do not modify the servo leads. The wire on your servos leads should be appropriate for the current that the servos will draw. You will still benefit from using HD extensions, which have less resistance. The HD extension wire is most important for high torque servos that draw more current, and for very long extensions, in order to keep the resistance low.

Frank

Rodney

Your biggest problem with extensions is the quality of the connectors if you install extensions. The impedance of any one of those extra connections can be greater than the added wire causes. Also, in time the connectors build up some corrosion (unless you have zero humidity in your area) and will get progressively worse as time goes on. This is an especial problem if the connectors are buried and do not get exercised (disconnected and reconnected) frequently. That is wise it is much better to solder in any extensions.

CK1

My Feedback: (60)

Highly agreed

Jezmo

Gold is beautiful in more ways than meets the eye. Like, it doesn't corrode which is why the higher quality connector are plated in Gold.

dredhea

My Feedback: (13)

I personally don't trust any connectors buried inside my wings, so I solder all of my extensions. This has several advantages: 1. It will NOT come apart. 2. Soldered joints have less loss than connectors, though the loss is negligable in most cases. 3. You can make the leads EXACTLY the length you need versus servo extentions that come in fixed lengths. You usually end up with several extra inches of wire that detracts from a neat and tidy installation. The advice to use HD servo wire is correct. You will have less loss, even if it connects to standard sized wire at both ends. However, if your soldering skills are adequate, why not remove that standard wire and replace the entire length with the larger guage wire? You eliminate the need for any splices at all, assuming that you can install a new connector at the end.