I have read a couple of things on here where someone has talked about stalling a servo. What does it mean to stall a servo and how do you do that?


Thanks

A servo will stall when it encounters a load so great that it cannot move to the commanded position. Required torque > Avaliable torque. For example, if your endpoints are not adjusted properly and the pushrod binds your servo willstall.Stalled servos draw a lot of current (which can quickly drain a battery)and the motor/board inside the servo can be damaged.

It is also possible to stall a servo by trying to have it drive too large of a control surface.

In flight the pressure of the air pushing the surface back could increase the load on the servo to the point of stall.

This of course then has two bad effects, 1) high current draw, 2) reduced control authority.

The former can also cause receivers to reboot or temporarily shut down if the voltage drops too much, and you can loose control of your plane.

A single standard servo can draw around 2 amps ( 2000mA ) of current when it stalls!

On a properly set up plane the total servo draw is normally much less ( typical for a .40-.50 size plane I see 300mA-800mA total momentary draws in normal sports flying ) but that can vary due to problems. Sitting idle on the ground your electronics draw far less...

If you set your linkages and your endpoints properly, and use the right sized servos, stalling should not be an issue.

Total servo draw can still cause problems however.... those 800mAh packs don't cut it now-a-days... so I've gone to 1800mAh and above packs for my smaller planes.

Thanks guys