Even though I’m not a beginner, I thought I would put this in the beginners forum. I am completely stumped. I have a plane that I have been flying for a couple years, no problems. Last week, went to the flying field, batteries charged, plane all set and ready to go, check controls and one of the ailerons is wiggiling, but only after moving the stick. Stick not moving, aileron not moving. Move stick to far left or right and the aileron wiggles after the stick stops to far left or right position. Move stick back to center and aileron moves back to center and then wiggles for a second or two and then centers. I figured that the servo had mysteriously gone bad. So a week later I bought a new servo and plugged the “Y” connector in so that I could see which servo, and they were both wiggling. Ha ha, Y connector has gone bad! I did not change the servo. Plug each servo in directly one at a time and they work fine. Change out the Y connector (which was not that easy to do) and guess what, one servo still wiggles. How can that be? Plugged in each servo one at a time, they work fine, use a Y connector, and one wiggles.
Any suggestions? Both Y connectors are bad (no way)?

Did you change Rx battery , if 6v you could be over charged. Move away from your Rx with your Tx and see if they center. Some times changing from 4.8 to 6v will do all kinds of things. Just a thought

You could be over driving the servo what does happen when you back away a few feet? Perhaps your getting some weird stuff out of the servo you didn't change.....can you unplug that servo from the Y and see what happens? One more thing can you bypass your Switch...but a battery directly to the receiver?

I had a similar issue running 6 v on Futaba. When fresh off charge sometimes the aileron would wiggle. Move all servos for 15 secs to knock off the float voltage and everything settled down.

No y leads though.

There is one of the 2.4 sets the advises against y leads.

If your equipment has been around for a while you might just need to connect/ disconnect/ connect / disconnect the servos to the leads (or extensions) 5 or 6 times just to ensure the metal to metal contact is good. That has worked for me.

Bad port on the receiver. Probably not but maybe..

I have seen that anything that causes low voltage can cause this wiggling.

Well, read all the responses so far. The only thing I have changed so far is the Y connector. Also, it's an Airtronics RDS 8000 with 8 channel 92824 receiver. Futaba servos. Battery is at 5.2 volts, 5.04 volts under load with tester. I guess all of this is irrelevant because here is what I just tried: different receiver (same model), everything worked fine. Plugged the original receiver back in and now everything works fine. So either the switch lead to the receiver, or the aileron extension that was plugged into the receiver was maybe loose? That is the only two items I unplugged and then plugged back in to the original receiver.
Weird, but maybe unplugging and reinstalling was all that it needed. New one on me. Guess I'll find out tomorrow when I take it up. [X(]

Thanks for all the help.

I'll let you know if it does it again. Hopefully it doesn't.

Hi mesaflyer
By unplugging and replugging, the contacts were cleaned and made better connections. That eliminated some voltage losses.

I'll vote for voltage loss too. It doesn't take much corrosion or looseness to cause a connection to drop some voltage, and we don't have any to spare in our systems.

Gary in post 5 brought up something that most folks don't think about. When I was working IMAA shows I saw a lot of mystery crashes that were traced back to Ys and leads being dirty or coroded. Big Giant scale planes don't get flown as often as smaller planes and they just sit in the hanger. Time for a show and they come down, get checked out and flown. Long servo leads don't get pulled or cleaned and you have a mystery crash. If you have leads and Ys it's a good idea to once a year shoot them with electrical terminal cleaner and plug them in and out as Gary mentioned.
In my case I quit using them. Lead cleaning is something no one does. I solder extensions onto my servos and forget them. Ys I haven't used in years. A friend owned a hobby shop and there was a rash of bad Ys being brought back to the shop so we tested a bunch of them, both JR and Futaba. Almost half of the Ys on the wrack were bad. I have never used one sense. We figured they didn't move very much and may have corroded?? You can have a bunch of bad Ys. I have also had a bad switch that caused a servo to go nuts and a bad RX. It can be more then one thing going on.

The bad connections are very often a problem in ailerons that have extensions or Y's hooked up. With time, the contacts corrode and cause a bad connection, usually on the signal wire but can be on any or all three wires. That is why I never use them, always solder in extension wires to eliminate any hidden or seldom exercised connection.

So I can understand. Are you guys saying that you solder together the lead in from both wing servos together and then plug the one wire into the aileron slot on the RX.

Depends on the radio. I solder on longer leads(cut off one end of an extension or solder a piece of wire in the middle.) to eliminate a connection then use two channels for the ailerons with shorter extension on the rx. I don't like extensions in the wing where they can't be inspected. A more basic radio might require a Y harness.

Hi!
Use contact cleaner if you are unsure!

Or white lithium spray grease.

I buy bulk servo wire when it comes up on sale at Hobby People. If I need a lead that is two feet long I cut two feet of wire then cut the servo wire in half and solder the wire between the servo lead wire. You can stagger the soldered area or just leave the ends all flush. I use heat shrink tube over the solder splice so there is never any shorting. Once soldered it doesn't corrode. If you need a photo I can take one for you.
Gene

I have extended the wires on a couple servos so far. Did this on my 4 Star 120 because the aileron servos were so far away from the exiting hole on the wing, and on my son's MOJO because that is the only way that it can be built. Both have been working so far.
The MOJO instructions shows disconnecting the servo plug, soldering on a length of wire, feeding the wire inside a carbon fiber tube via slit that is cut in the side of the tube, and then re-installing a plug. Worked pretty good, so far.

Oh, and the plane flew just fine, until I dumped the second landing and bent the gear. My fault, but easy fix.

I always build my own extensions and solder them into the servo leads, by splicing them between the servo and the plug.....no chance of plug problems. I also remember my buddies dad, a lifetime flyer, teaching me that when the Tx and the Rx are too close to each other, the servos will jitter from an overwhelming signal. he always pointed the antenna slightly away from the Rx when testing right next to the plane before a flight,..... then walked away from the plane a dozen or so steps for takeoff,...i'm sure this is the reason he did that.