Let’s be honest Tim, you know, I know and others are well aware the 8411’s have rightfully earned the reputation for premature gear train wear. That said some are getting better wear than others. As time moved on I suspect JR realized the problem and may have made changes to the composition of the metal/materials used for the gear train (purely speculation) this may account for the FEW that report 500 flights with nary a bit of wear... Ganged servos do not represent a potential for increased wear if anything they absorb and or mask it with there slight misalignment. The servos most likely to show wear earlier on in life are typically the elevators and ailerons. These servos are supporting the weight of the surfaces typically as most do not mass balance the surfaces. It’s also pretty common for modelers to mechanically setup their models for massive throws with huge surfaces. Long arms and short control horn pivots contribute to less the ideal mechanical advantage setups which place more work on the gear train. In short there are several factors that can and will affect gear train wear, I mentioned only a few.

Since you are not personally using the Hitec 5945’s how is you can offer so much insight on their viability? Some of us have used both extensively and have learned for ourselves from hands on use what is holding up better. You are continually spill hearsay and miss-information with regard to various products that are apparently not up to your standard and you openly suggest you’ve seen this and that, but are lacking the actual specific knowledge of use and abuse but feel you have enough info to point fingers and talk about burning holes of dollars, time and earth. There is something to be said for hands on experience. You’re pretty passionate about your beliefs and that is fine in my book, however I tire of the continual mauling you present of things you have know specific experience with! Furthermore there are hundreds and hundreds of satisfied users of these products that you dislike and dishonor with your unsubstantiated hearsay that report excellent results, what does this all mean?

“Or you could just use good quality servos to begin with and skip all the above. I'll take the little bit of gear wear, and the higher performance, and precision of the 8411 anyday.”

You're kidding right? Why do you believe the 8411 is of a higher quality, because it costs more and is purported to be, name recognition or maybe perceived value? Does quality equate to needed repairs or lack thereof? What about the higher performance and precision? Kindly qualify this rhetoric. Since you have not used the 5945’s I’d find it hard to justify anything you offer as evidence.

“I have no reason at all to trust a Hitec product, and I've seen no reason for these continuous failures...if you simply do a search on here you will see that the question has been raised many times, but has never been aswered as to why they do it, other than this date code stuff...sorry to say, the stickers haven't fixed the problem, and haven't answered the question as to why they are still doing it either.”

Again you are ill informed and offer miss-information and have no specific knowledge of any of the above. If you do a search with respect to Hitecs Digitals you’ll find the answers. There were some issues when Hitec first released the digital that was simply an oversight on their part with regard to how other manufacturers equipment could and would transmit control signals outside of the programmed recognized limits of their NEW digital servos, it was realized and fixed. This problem has not been realized since. More specifically if you look for info on the 5945’s you’ll find very little info on failures, certainly substantially less than 8411’s.. The only other substantiated problem with Hitec’s digitals has been with their 5645’s, 3-pole digital amplified standard servo. These had some problems with the motors, IMO. Whatever the problem, it has been recognized and dealt with.

“Is there any question about the reliability of the JR 8411?”

Absolutely without doubt there have been problems, you want me to qualify my beliefs or should we just agree that they have their problems much like anything else available.

“Is there on the Hitec's?”

Just like the rest there can and will be problems with reliability, to date none of my partners have realized any reliability problems, nor have I.

“I guess that depends on how much disposable income one has, and how much they like to build. ”

You’ve made references repeatedly to the dollars, time and so fourth one is flying around. I’ll offer a simple FACTUAL statement with absolutely no hearsay or fluff; I nearly lost two of those $10,000 aircraft you mention using 8411’s that failed in flight. I have seen several that were not so lucky! Seen even more with servo failures of some sort or another… Sometimes it’s the servo other times it the user and or set-up or installation that leads to a problem. That said it happens, BUT there is no more reason to believe a Hitec 5945 will lead to the demise of your model than an 8411. Simple as that, the FACTS support this easily. I own four Carden 40%, one A/W 40%, two 33% models and lot’s of more small stuff equipped with Hitec digitals. My partners have similar stables with Fiber Classics, A/W models and more, again equipped with Hitec Digitals. I/we don’t have money to BURN and equip our models with what we believe works best.