cheap equipment
 

Am I doing wrong buy buying stuff that not the top of the line stuff .Like servos from kingshobby {hong kong}I buy batteries servo and motors from them and other dealers .one of the guys at the club keep say that i need to buy the higher priced stuff like name brand stuff .Like hitec futaba and other .Am I wrong useing cheaper stuff.

RE: cheap equipment
 

Not necessarily. Some of the "cheap" stuff works just fine. I guess it all depends on your definition of cheap, too. For instance, Airtronics and Futaba both sell a standard servo for right about $10.00 and they work just fine. To me, ten bucks is relatively cheap.. or should I say inexpensive.

I guess you have to watch what you get and expect that some of the "cheap" stuff is exactly that.. then some of this stuff is a bargain.

CGr.

RE: cheap equipment
 

You may well want to think about the old saying, You get what you pay for. Good Luck, Dave

RE: cheap equipment
 

As long as what you buy is reliable, and you aren't losing planes due to equipment failure, who cares what name is on it and how much you paid for it? ;)

Hobby King as some good buys and some cheap junk. Be sure to read the reviews of the specific servos you are buying from them. I've read good and bad reviews for various servos that they sell. Be sure to thoroughly test them out on the ground, watch for jitter, overshoot, stripped gears, etc.

Personally, I use name brand servos, but buy LiPo batts and chargers from Hobby King. I'll also consider buying motors and ESCs from them in the future.

RE: cheap equipment
 

There is nothing wrong with Hobby City stuff, as long as it is used in the right applications. Their Turnigy motors and Rhino/Zippy batteries are great. Their battery chargers, particularly the Turnigy Accucell 6, are an unbelievable deal, and they work great. I have used some of the small Hextronix servos, and they have been great. I haven't used any of their larger servos or any RX's.

I also haven't bought any of their glow engines, but the prices are great, and they appear to be at least as good as Magnums.

I have had great success with Berg Microstamp RX's in .40 size glow planes. They can be had from Tower for around $35, and I mostly use Hitec 311 servos in standard sport planes. They are only $8.99 each.

Good luck

RE: cheap equipment
 

"You get what you pay for" is often used as hype for over priced items.

Any time you hear that used, BE CAREFUL, as you may be buying into a marketing ploy.

That is not to say that better items are often more expensive, but instead, that you can NEVER go by price alone.


The Hobby City servos, engines, motors, ESC's, LiPo's, etc tend to be first rate.

The one thing you do give up for the low cost, is customer service and ease of returns and exchanges.

I factor this in to all my purchases from them. e.g. if I have a bad servo ( none-thus far ) I expect to toss it away rather than exchange it.

Just make sure that what you purchase are the RIGHT items for your purposes and that the items are in stock when you post your order.

RE: cheap equipment
 

IMO


It depends on your aircraft, foamies and electric toys
are ok for cheap.

If it's a IC engine and 2.4 Rx aircraft, I use name brand
stuff.

How much $$ do you have in the whole aircraft ?

Bob

RE: cheap equipment
 

You CAN go "cheap" as in "inexpensive" even on the big gassers.

Plane size really doesn't factor in....


I see many guys spending upwards of 180.00/ea for big name $230oz/in+ digital metal gear servos.

I purchased $24.00/ea servos from Hobby City for my gassers with the same charactersitics.

My net per plane servo cost is less than ONE of their servos!!! And mine are faster and more reliable.

Funny thing is, after I purchased my first set of servos I've also seen other U.S. Hobby vendors pick them up and recommend them as well for large planes... e.g. Troy Built Models now carries and recommends them.

That alone is a good endorsement and vindication that "you get what you pay for" doesn't always apply.

RE: cheap equipment
 

There is a big difference between "cheap" and "low price". You can get some very good stuff at bargain prices. You can also get cheap junk. Sometimes you can pay top dollar for some not so great stuff as well; lipos are a great example of this. As you spend more time in the hobby, talk to others about their experiences and stuff you get to know what is good and what isn't regardless of price.

I personally have seen quite a few no-name servos fail so I try to stick with the major manufacturers. They seem to fail less often in my experience and there is someone to support them if there does happen to be a problem (nothing is perfect). I will always pay a little more for good service but that doesn't mean I buy the most expensive stuff out there. That would often be pointless and a little foolish. I try to buy what I feel is appropriate for the application at the best price.

RE: cheap equipment
 

"Low price" and "cheap" are often used interchangeably, though I agree with "You can get some very good stuff at bargain prices. You can also get cheap junk. Sometimes you can pay top dollar for some not so great stuff as well".

I've had more servo failures with Hitec's than with any other brand, including the cheapies, and I've purchased litterally several hundred cheap ( cough * inexpensive * ) servos.

e.g.

Five bad Hitecs over 30 purchased, two in flight failures, versus two bad 5010's over 180 purchased, no in-flight failures under more strenuous conditions than the Hitecs.

Never-the-less I do not believe that Hitec manufacturers "poor" servos, merely that I got into a couple of bad runs.
I still purchase them as well.

Yet the cheapies have given me much more value for my money. If one fails in testing, I'll just toss it.

RE: cheap equipment
 

I think the best test is experience, you can give it a try and then tell yourself if it was or not a good deal, some folks says futaba stuff is junk, but I have never had a problem with any servo or anything, you can ask about evolution engines, almost everyone will tell you they are junk, but I have one myself and never had any problem at all with it. so I guess you can get some cheap stuff and try it, you may be surprised.

RE: cheap equipment
 

IMHO that's the best way to do it!

Buy one of what you are concerned about and put it through the wringer.

It is not the easiest approach, but you KNOW the results.

RE: cheap equipment
 

I would say it really depends on your budget, and what you are going to put it into. I have an old cub that I got for $25, I have an old engine that I will put on it, and I will probably get some of the "cheap" servos from Hobby city to try on it, if I can get the whole plane fling for $150 or less, I am happy, and it will give me an chance to get more planes in the air. I do have a very tight budget, I try to spend less then $100 a month on average, which does not take long.

Jon

RE: cheap equipment
 

Thanks for letting me know all these things..!! Ever after here in the forums I would love to be knowing many fabulous things ..!!

Name tag given for me to have a visit and It would never been easy thouh as one folk said I still tring hard to achieve it..!!

Wallion..!!

.

RE: cheap equipment
 

Experience does pay off. If you get the cheapies for 7 bucks and the desent one is 8 or 9 bucks, I don't think that is a signifigant differance... although if you can get 5 or 6 cheapies for $20.00, I would give em a try. The worst thing that will happen is you will end up rebuilding a plane.
dan

RE: cheap equipment
 

Well, not quite.. depends on where the plane comes down.

CGr.

RE: cheap equipment
 

Ihave seen more than one high dollar servo go bad with very little use so just paying a bunch of money isnt always a guarantee it will be right , just that if it breaks they will give you a new one.

RE: cheap equipment
 

I love buying cheap "chinese stuff".
As long as its got relativley good reviews and not any major obvious faults, im more than happy to buy stuff like that.
Nothing is like spending half the money than the guy next to you with the excact same kind of equipment except a lot more expensive, and both function just as good :)

Go for it! Just make sure you dont buy anything with bad reviews. Google the brand fex and check the general quality before you buy anything.

But hey, of course it is often a good idea to buy the more known brands like Futaba etc, because then you are often assured that it is good quality.
It is maybe a little risky business buying the cheap stuff, but I like it.

RE: cheap equipment
 

I guess with all the talk buy it try it check it out and if it works go for it. I 'm retried on ss and if i want to fly and believed me i do I'm going to keep buying inexpensive items .I guess everyone dose it.

RE: cheap equipment
 

lurker737
I try to do reaserch on anything I buy that is RC. Places like HobbyKing have reviews right with the product listing I don't believe all of them but they will give me an idea of what to expect. I also read up here on RCUniverse and others if I can find them. Sometimes I just cannot find anything and have to take a chance. One particular item was a Fuji BT24EI. Boy you would think I could find something, but almost nothing. 2 videos on Youtube and a couple of informationless posts on the forums. Still don't know what to think about that one and I guess I am going to have to find out for myself.

Out of all of the things I have bought in this hobby I think I only have made 2 bad purchases. That was a TowerPro MG995 digital servo I picked up at a swap meet. It sounded too good to be true when I purchased it but I controlled myself and only picked up 1 instead of the 5 I was going to. When I got home I did a search and found nothing but bad reviews of it. About a week ago I installed it into my plane and found out that they were all right, it is a terrible servo. It will come back out before the plane flies. The other was an Aviatar 46 that the jet and the inlet needle just don't seem to match, I have tried a fix that I have found here on RC Universe, but I swear that at idle it pumps more fuel through the engine then at full throttle. Again I did the research after the purchase.

I have fried just as many Great Planes ESC'S as GWS or Turnigy or HK SS. I break gears in all of the submicro servos, it does not matter what brand. The only time I have lost a plane to a servo it was a JR. As a matter of fact the JR's are the only standard servos I have ever had quit. But I have nothing against them and I would buy them again. After you get enough of the electronics in this hobby you are bound to find a lemon.

So the only sugestion I have is "Research". And no matter what you get do lots of testing before you use it.

It sure would be nice if more of the distributers had user reviews in with the product listings.-BW

RE: cheap equipment
 

Too often a product's price is more directly related to its marketing budget rather than its quality.

Never make up your mind about a particular product until you tried it yourself.

RE: cheap equipment
 

Had a guy in the club paying $400 for electric motors and burnt 2 of them up, bent the shaft in another, he is using 10 cell packs in the aircraft (2mtr pattern), got him to replace the motors with $30 motors from Hobbycity and has not had a fault with them in over 200 flights, he flys pattern and is good at it and he uses batteries from the same place.

Cheers

RE: cheap equipment
 

In over 27 years of flying RC I have about every different manufactures radios Airtronics, Aristocraft (sold through Polk Hobbys made by Hitec), Cirrus, Futaba, Hitec, and JR. I still use my Airtronics (Vangard 6) and JR (Century VII) I purchased back in the mid 80s The only radios that were POS are the old Aristocraft and the newer Hitec Optic 6s (read my review here on RCU) Over the years I have had to send the radios in for service Airtronics (now Global), Futaba, and Jr have given me exceptional service. As far as servos goes I have had few failures (exept for Aristocraft which I wouldn't even use for throttle). You have to remember the older servos especially JRs will only work on 4 cell packs. If I need to buy servos or 72 mhz receivers I usually buy Hitec I only have a problem with their Optic 6 Transmitter that they sold with defective backs that will not hold the module tight causing lost of signal and crashed planes.

RE: cheap equipment
 

This is a touchy subject, as with most things on here, lol. I would have to say for me anyways there are places to try and save and there are places to buy name brand. I bought a name brand transmitter but my servos are not. The things that I can see using for a long period of time I try to buy name brand, but otherwise I try to save money as I am on a tight budget. You do get what you pay for in most situations but there are times you pay for a name. It is tough to decide when to spend money but with experience comes knowledge. You are by no means wrong, but there is benefits to buying the best in some cases.

RE: cheap equipment
 

Speaking of cheap Chinese junk and MG995's in particular......... I've been building and flying Mojo and Primo's for the past couple years, 3D planes calling for high torque servos. For the first Mojo, I took a chance and ordered 4 MG995's from Tesla Electronics on Ebay (180 oz/in at 4.8 volts) for $55 shipped to my door. After 200+ flights of thrashing the heck out of them, no problems whatsoever, none, zip. Ordered 4 more from Tesla for the next plane, a primo, same thing, absolutely no problems.

Pretty good deal I thought, but I noticed a couple of Chinese vendors offering MG995's even cheaper than Tesla on Ebay (Tesla is in the USA BTW), so for the heck of it I ordered 4 from them. Those turned out to be junk. Same identical sticker on them (Tower Pro MG995), but not the same servo. The ones from Tesla had a kinda dull black case with a purple QC sticker on the bottom, the Chinese ones had a shiny black case with no sticker of any sort on the bottom.

I've since ordered a dozen of the good MG995's from Tesla Electronics. All have the dull black case, never had a problem with them. In fact I swear except for the sticker on them, I'd say they are the same as Hi-tec MG645's. They appear to be the same servo right down to the purple QC sticker on the bottom. Probably made by the same factory, wherever that is.

No, I don't work for Tesla, just like to build and fly and not pay $100 each for quality servos!