Hello all,
Just curious, I have a ton of old foamy servos - would these be good for a 1/2a airplane? What are you using for your airplanes? High Voltage servos would be nice, but if I can reuse some of my old servos that would be best.
Rick

Could take a photo of what you have folks can chime in from there.

This is from my junk draw, any of it good for here?

Ok the HS 55's will work with a screaming TD
The Eflite will make a good throttle servo.

The HS 55 has the tiniest gear teeth made out of plastic. I guess that all other 9 gram sized servos that look just like HS 55s are built similar. If you have too much vibration feeding back through the control system..not good.
Well supported control rods should quiet down the bad vibes. Hard landings and rough handling on the ground probably account for some gear train failures.
I've had good luck with the E-flight servos...but not enough time spent using them to recommend them.

Much Thanks, but what servos do or would you use?
RP

I am using a pair of old HS 55s to control a very small 100 mph TD 049 plane. The loads on the ailerons and elevator are not too great. The plane is supposed to be flown nice and smooth to record how fast it is. The control surfaces do not have very much throw and the linkage geometry gives the servos maximum leverage.
In a Mach None I would fly it more aggressively with a high roll rate and more carefree, dare devil way. I think a pair of HS 65s would be a good choice, especially if I put a lot of time into making the Mach None a "museum piece"

Rick, if you're still reading in on this the servos you have would be fine for a lot of 1/2A designs.

By now you might be figuring out that it's all about how fast the model is flying and how big the surfaces are and how far you want to move them. The servos you have would all be fine for any but the fastest models used with larger surfaces. Any of the casual flying around 1/2A stuff or equivalent 80 to 140 watt electric flying would be fine with them. Even a slower flying 2M glider with an .049 on the nose would be fine with the servos you show. The risk there would not be in the air but on the ground where a strike against the rudder on a polyhedral style glider would be inclined to snap the gear teeth. But in the air the small servos shown would be enough for even a slower flying "casual" 2m glider.

Or you could have some 4 channel fun with a 50 to 60 inch span 1/2A warm liner style glider where you put one of the small servos on each aileron with one each on the elevators and rudder.

There was also a category of old timer flying with 45 to 50 inch span lightly built "stick and film" or "stick and tissue" old timer gas models or the Spirite of SAM even for scaled up rubber models at around 40" span that fly quite slowly in a "parkflyer" style manner. The 1/2A Texaco event models would fly just fine with the servos you have there.

Hope that helps out. And sorry I'm late to the party.

I checked in just to see if there was any activity on the forum and to my surprise, some old members popped up -- had not seen Combatpigg for some time. I don't care for the HS-55, not because of available torque, but because it seems to shed teeth like a drunk in a bar fight. A ground thump or hanger bump and you may lose or crack a tooth, only to find out too late. For the smaller servos, I've gone exclusively to metal gear. They're heavier by about a tenth of an ounce, but I don't have to worry about a gear train breakage. I've had good results from the EMAX ES08MA II. The unbranded version can be had for next to nothing with a little shopping around.

Wow, great price. I'll keep an eye on them, much better than $20 a piece, I was lamenting about spending $60 on servos... Much Thanks!
Rick

We have been trying to break servos with our 049s. A couple of us have also used Emax analog metal gear servos. The model ES08MAII is about $74.00 CDN for 10 of them. Around 12 grams with grommets and lead.

Just found this link. Price down to about $56.00 US for 10.

https://www.banggood.com/10PCS-EMAX-...r_warehouse=CN

Looks good, I ordered 5 from E-max, the only problem was shipping. They shipped right away but it took like 4 weeks to arrive.
RP

I buy my E-Max servos from Altitude Hobbies. They generally keep them in stock at reasonable prices. Try AltitudeHobbies.com.

I’m guessing the HS82mg would be fine for up to .25 size planes correct?

The Hitec HS82MG is listed at 38.88 oz-in on 4.8 volts and closer to 47 oz-in at 6 volts. back in the 1970's, this would be considered a standard torques servo and we flew .40 size sport planes on servos this size. It should be fine for .25 glow sport/pattern planes,

thanks for the confirmation bud. 👍👍

I plan to put 8 to 9 gram plastic gear servos in my classic Ace Pacer. I remember being amazed at how well it flew on a TD 049. That was with old heavy RC gear, i will only be better with this newer lighter gear.

Kevinkal,

There is an even better servo set up for your Pacer. EMAX makes a 5.5 gram digital metal gear servo that weighs only 5.5 grams and makes 18 ounce-inches of torque on 6 volts... way more than enough for your Pacer. I flew a Mach None on three channels and a Tee Dee .051 about 40 years ago using three small Ace servos I built from a kit (larger and heavier than the EMAX). It's performance was absolutely fantastic with rudder allowing snap rolls and knife edge flight. The Pacer and Mach None flight characteristics and performance are practically identical. Definitely worthwhile going 3-channel and adding the rudder. Three servos at 5.5 grams each (16.5 grams) weigh less than two 9 gram servos. These EMAX servos are tiny and will easily fit three servos in the fuselage (Dimensions: 0.79x0.35x0.91 in). At only $10 each, they won't break the bank. Check out the EMAX ES9052MD servo here:
https://www.altitudehobbies.com/coll...-digital-servo

I've had bad luck with HS55 servos in 1/2A glow powered planes. One problem is I don't think the HS55 servos include grommets for isolation from vibration, and I have had more than one fail to work due to some electrical fault that I THINK was probably vibration related. I have also had problems with the servo gears, as others have mentioned, the gears are fragile and easily damaged on landing (no landing gear), or just hangar rash. HS55s are great servos for lightweight foamy electric planes, but not so good with 1/2a glow planes in my opinion. Yes, they will work with 1/2a glow, until they don't, which happens with more frequency than I am willing to accept.

A better choice would be the HS65 line, or even the HS81 servos which are awesome for 1/2A up to .19 to .25 size planes.

100% in agreement with .049flyer. I think the HS55's are one of Hitech poorest servos. In a pinch I might use one on a .020 or .010 airplane. There are too many better, and cheaper choices then the 55's. My first 1/2A's were rudder only escapement airplanes, and I've flown 1/2A for 65 years.