Hi all,
I'm in the process of building a piper cub PA 18 and the plan requires a servo on each of the aileron. So I believe a Y harness is needed. I went thru a few LHS and found most of the Y harness wiring very short. Is there any way to lengthen it? Or are there any option other than the Y harness?
Thanks in advance for the response.

Servo extention wires could always be added after the y

Cut the Y-lead approx 1.5 inches from the male plug end, then prepare the bare ends for soldering. Then take a length of servo wire from your LHS, cut to roughly the length you need to extend by, and solder it in place(don't forgot to slide some heatshrink over to tidy the joints up).

OR, extend the leads of two servos in the same manner and plug them into different receiver channels and use mixing to control them(if you have it).

hope that helps.

No need to cut, solder or anything like that. Just buy 6" extensions for your particular type of system (J,Z, old airtronics, etc.) That should give you plenty of length to reach the "Y" harness inside the fuse. IF you need it, they do make them in longer lengths as well. Another option is to purchase some aftermarket servos (HiTec). They have MUCH longer leads on them that standard (futaba, airtronics, etc) servos have.

On my Sig SE, I put two HiTec servos in the wings, and the leads were long enough to make it all the way through the wing into the fuselage.

There are places on-line (I can't remember where) that will sell you connectors, wire, terminal and crimp tools so you can make your own extensions or adaptors in whatever manner you desire. Someone here will chime in with the info soon, if not I will hunt it down if you are interested.

Connery,
It's actually a pretty good idea to cut and solder in longer leads. Too many connectors can reduce the signal stregth to the servo and cause glitching.
Dennis-

here's what I would do (And have done many times)

Lengthen the SERVO wires instead of the Y cord (Using the soldering method). Make them long enough to go completely through the wing and easily reach the Y cord. That way, you can always use them without the Y cord if you ever want to plug into 2 separate channels, or if you want to install them in the tail of an airplane.

Thanks for all the valuable suggestion. Lengthen the servos wire is not a bad idea.
Same point again, do I need only servo wire or just normal wire to do the extension?
Thanks

Any wire will work, but make sure it's STRANDED (As opposed to solid core)

Dennis,

You are absolutly correct. BUT for someone that has not soldered before they could potentially cause MORE problems if they are unsure of what they are doing. That's why I suggested something like the Hitec servos that already come with longer leads.

Bemyself,

If you do decide to solder extensions on, consider going by the LHS (or Tower, ebay etc.) and purchasing the ready made extensions and then clip one end off the extension and the end off the servo lead and solder them together. And be sure to use heat shrink covering on each wire and then a single piece to cover all of them to ensure a good connection.

Adding extensions (with the added connectors) is a very poor choice in the long run. Even the best connectors, if placed where they do not get excercized by plugging/unpluging occasionally will eventually fail due to corosion. First you notice jitter or intermittent operation followed eventually by total failure. Never put a connector where it will not be occasionally exercised. Soldered extensions are far more reliable.

Thanks everybody for their kind effort in explaning to me. The illustration on wires really help me alot. Thanks Minnflyer. I'll get an expert to do the soldering.
Once again thank you all for your kind suggestion.
Regards.

Soldering is actually easy if you remember 2 things. Keep the tip of the soldering iron tinned with solder and clean!!!
A 30 watt Weller iron works well! I've been soldering my own stuff since I started with electric planes 4 years ago.
Tin your iron, then apply the bare wire to the tip, touch the solder to the wire (you will see it wick up), do same for other
strand of wire, then put both tinned wires together against the iron tip, the solder will flow together (takes less than a second),
pull both wires from iron making sure they stay connected allowing solder to cool (about a few seconds), wrap in electrical tape and then add the heat-shrink to the joint. Your done! Been doing it this way for quite awhile and aint had a failure yet. Like I said, soldering is easy once you get the hang of it.

Dave...

Not to bring this subject back but if you have a computer radio you can use the "mixing" which you can electronically join them through programming functions int he transmitter. I may be wrong ?

P.S I think i'm now starting to see the advantages to a computer radio.....

You are correct Airstrike but he will probably still need extensions for the wing mounted servos. Would only need computer/mixing here if he wanted flaps or flaperons.

If you have a computer radio with more than four channels, use two separate channels for each aileron then run the cables, one to channel 2 the other to channel 6 (Airtronics RD6000 and RD8000.. others may vary with channel selection but do the same thing). Then set the radio up for flaperons, follow instructions on end points and dual rates and off you go. No more Y connectors. Just a suggestion... no flames please.