ORIGINAL: Matt Merciez
Tom, what you mentioned in the above paragraph is what I am now experimenting with. I am now starting to reduce my servo arms length to increase my servo travel for the desired surface travel. Instead of setting up the plane with max surface travel initially, it seems like the smart thing to do is setup for moderate travel and slowly increase the travel until you have enough travel for your desired mode of flight. I am starting to think that I have too much travel in the surfaces for what I need, and I am wasting mechanical advantage, as well as servo resolution at the expense of high throw rates that I can't use.
So long as you're not reducing the throw via ATV's you doing it right. If you're running your ATV's reduced you're giving up servo resolution. Set your ATV's to maximum (I actually set it just short of maximum to account for centering adjustments.. about 140%), and then adjust throw mechanically to get what you want. THAT'S maximum resolution and mechanical advantage.
There's a nice linkage design/analysis thing for Microsoft Excel that will tell you how much force will be exerted on your servo. It's located at:
http://members.cox.net/evdesign/page...ge_design.html
It's worth the money for sure and I find it to be invaluable in determining if I'm using correct servos for an airplane.
EDIT: updated link