Had an interesting failure today. On Flight number 20, an 8611 developed an internal short. I use the Powerflite adjustable voltage regulators, which are rated at 7.5 amps continuous and 10 amp surge. The bad servo maxed out the regulator and knocked the voltage on that circuit down to 1 volt. Thank goodness I use isolated circuits or that would have been the end of the flight.......and the plane.

Being curious, I removed the bad servo and hooked it up directly to a 5 cell nicad pack with an ampmeter. The result? 15 amps draw! Of course the thing started hissing and smoking. I had no idea that those little servo wires could handle that kind of amperage.....granted, it was just long enough to put a plane in the dirt. 15 amp draw is enough to take out any pair of regulators I have yet seen in RC planes!

Anyway, I thought some of you would be interested to know just how much a servo can draw in certain failures. The Powerflite regulator was outstanding with its built in overload protection. After removing the short, the abused regulator almost immediately returned to normal operation.

CJ