Todd L.

My Feedback: (9)

I have 4 new HS-635HB's in my Aerowoks porfile. Never even had it out to the field yet but started it last night for the first time to run my tank of fuel. wile starting it the motor kicked back wich made the plane "jump". when the plane jumped the tip of the alieron hit my almost empty gas can. did not hit it had but what do ya know, the servo gear STRIPED! The new gear train is suposed to be stronger then "stock" servo's? I think not. Is Hitech having problems with this new gear train? Do I just send it back and get a FREE fix? Or am I just gonna have to pay to get a NEW servo fixed that never was used.
Thanks

P.S.
I was useing the stock servo arms.

DENNIS C

My Feedback: (99)

HUmmmmmmmmmm.Very interesting[&:]

SMALLFLY-

My Feedback: (19)

Where did you hear the gears wouldnt strip. They are supposed to be 4 times stronger than nylon, but not as strong as all metal gears.
They have much better resistance to vibration wearing on them. Most any servo will strip with a large g force impact. I bet if you send it in hitec will fix it with no questions asked. I dont see how you can imply this was there fault

Todd L.

My Feedback: (9)

Well smallfry,
I was not implying that is was their falt. I was implying that something as simple as a bump on a control surface takes a gear out somthings wrong, dont you think? more stress is put on a suface in flight then that what happened to strip the gear. are you with Hitec tec support? all I want to know is:
Am I gonna be stuck payin for a gear set?
Is their a problem with the new gear train?

XJet

When I was a teenager, I flew for years using an old Futaba 4-channel set (the one with the angled aerial and chrome-like stick units).

Despite goodness knows how many major crashes (including a few that broke engine crankcases), I never suffered a single stripped servo gear.

Sure, the servos were heavy and weak, but comparing the gear trains with modern servos it's obvious that today's offerings are using much wimpier gears -- why?

Surely doubling the thickness of the gears (especially with nylons) would add only a tiny amount of weight and bulk while producing a far more reliable package?

I find it ridiculous that some modern servos actually produce so much torque that they can virtualy trash their own gear-train simply by operating against a heavy load -- that's *bad* design - kind of like building a car with a 350 cubic inch V8 engine and the wheels off a child's trolley.

What's going on here?

Tired Old Man

My Feedback: (1)

It's called maximum profit for minimum investment.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Let me see if I got this right. You damaged a NEW servo, and in your words "it didn't hit that hard" and want to know if Hitec will fix it for FREE... Why the condescending attitude? You broke it, how do you know how hard it hit? I'd say it hard enough to break the gear train. The key word is YOU broke the servo while exposing the servo to a shock load. There is normal use and then there is outright abuse! Something has to give when you crash into something, the radio was powered up I assume?

There is nothing wrong with the Karbonite gear train. The Karbonite gears are stronger than nylon, that’s likely why you broke a gear. Servos are not designed to resist shock loads, and that goes for any brand servo. I have broken several gear sets on high end servos over the years by bumping the stabs and such. Its generally the primary plastic gear that goes.

One more thing you used the servo, installing it in the model and subsequently banging it into a gas can qualifies as using the servo, IMO. Maybe you didn't use it to fly the model but you used it...

Send the servo to Hitec's Service Department; they'll likely fix it for FREE.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Investing in NEW and IMPROVED technology is a minimum investment? Why go here, if your assertion was accurate Hitec already owned the tooling for the old school stuff, MAXIMUM profit was already in HITEC's face. Instead they invested in R&D, tooling expenses and more. Maximum profit will be well down the road.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Yeah, BUT how many times did you slam a surface into a gas can? Or how many times did your plane crash surface first?

Sure thicker gears maybe one road to take or how about new improved material technology? Some day with investments in R&D the power of the servos will match the resilience of the gear trains.

XJet

I expect that many of the crash-loads were very high -- I did rip the mounts of two servos but the gears were unharmed. The weight of a pushrod at however-many G's an airframe experiences when coming straight down on to hard sun-dried clay from a couple of hudred feet after the wing snaps at the center-join is certainly a great test of robustness :-)

But I have heard people complaining of simple things trashing their servos -- things like forgetting to turn the transmitter on before their Hitec FM receiver and having a servo driven to its stop, stripping a gear in the process.

It just seems silly to make a servo that can self-destruct in this way.

Why does it take an investment in R&D to build servos that are as robust as those I was using 20 years ago?

I've still got four old Futaba FS20 mini-servos here that have flown (and crashed) for *many* hours but have no perceptable slop in the gear train and two of them have subjected to such violent shock-loads that the mounting lugs have cracked. Sure, they're only 21 oz-ins of torque -- but I'd rather stall a servo in flight than bust its gears :-)

Having said all that, so far I'm quite happy with my Hitec servos -- it's just that the spectre of knowing that the carless handling of a model that would have caused no problems with 20-year old servos is most likely going to cost me $5 worth of cogs using today's servos.

Quite a few people have commented that the HS81s are a bit frail and that it's a far better option to go for the HS81MG. Of coruse I only found this out *after* I'd bought my HS81s and I see that it's nor really worth replacing the plastic cogs with metal ones, even when they do break -- you're better off to just buy four new servos and keep the plastic-geared ones for applications like throttle where the loads are light.

And always remember to turn the transmitter on first and off last when using a Hitec FM receiver :-)

Roll on smart decoders in the Hitec receivers (PLEASE) :-)

All my Hitec receivers are sitting on the bench right now and I'm using the FMA M5 because the Hitec's glitch like hell on final approach thanks to their somewhat "dated" decoder circuitry.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Hopefully we'll see some of the IPD technology filter down into the aircraft equipment, it's already happened for the surface stuff.

Are you suggesting that Hitecs PPM/FM Supreme RX's are dated? The Supremes test empirically better than most of the other stuff out there... Even the big name stuff plays second fiddle for the most part. NOW if your drawing your conclusion based on IPD and DSR technology I see your point... But then again you’re comparing apples to oranges.

zippo

I bought 4 x 325HB's over here in England because I wanted to try out the Karbonite gears. Being curious I opened one up and discovered that it has 2 karbonite and two standard white nylon gears (the output side). So I contacted Hitec asking if this was correct .. answer - yes it was - the 325's have two karbonite and two standard nylon gears fitted. It therefore does not have a karbonite gear train as advertised and over here in the UK contravines the trading standards laws. I have complianed to the UK importer and have basically got nowhere.

TRoc

I was under the assumption (silly me) that all the gears in a karbonite geared servo were karbonite. I wonder if all the gears in MG servos are all metal? I am now very curious to know which one stripped in Todd L's HS-635HB if those aren't all karbonite gears. If the servo is not taken apart by Hitec, however, I'm guessing that would void any warranty claim (even if perhaps there was found to be a casting flaw (or however they're made) in the gear that stripped). Hopefully, if Todd L. sends it in and asks them about it, they'll let him know (and he can tell us).

Todd L.

My Feedback: (9)

[/quote]
Why the condescending attitude? You broke it,
[/quote]

See, this is why I hate posting sometimes. I was not meaning to sound like I have a attitude. Again, I was wonder whats gonna happen when I send it in. YES!! I broke it!! I guess I just guage standard servo strength by a past H9 Ultra Stick I had that flew with "STANDARD" servos in it. Flew it for a year before I had a "Dumb Thumb moment" and wrecked it[&o]. It had well over a hundred beatings in the air and never once had a problem with the servo's. Even after the crash, no problems, I still have them today in my combats. And, YES, they are Hitec's. I am a big supporter of Hitec servo's. Hitec is in all giant scale's and my small birds too. I have only had issue with one 5645 I have that has been in to Hitec twice for the same problem.

rcflier_gi

My Feedback: (2)

Metal gear servos have one nylon gear in the train (at least the ones I have seen).

XJet

I think you're right and Mike is on record here in older threads stating that the single nylon gear is to reduce the glitching effects produced by an all-metal gear train (or something similar).

The funny thing is that many other servo makers seem to build *all* metal geartrains without encountering the problems that Hitec seek to avoid -- go figure.

I wonder how much money Hitec makes from selling replacement gearsets :-)

XJet

Um.. yes, I guess I am suggesting that Hitec's non-IPD FM receivers are dated.

There are now a goodly number of $50 receivers on the market with IPD/DSR, all of which offer far more effective interference rejection than Hitec's offerings.

Why buy a hitec 555 when the same money will buy you a far more intererence-resistant FMA M5 that is smaller and weighs less?

Okay, so FMA's support is so bad as to be considered non-existant -- but the M5 *is* a better receiver from a number of perspectives.

I've done side-by-side tests of the FMA-M5, the Hitec Supreme and the Hitec 555 and, although the Hitec receivers have 60% more range, the FMA still provides what amounts to "out of site" capabilities. And, as my grandpappy used to say "any more than enough is a waste" :-)

If/when Hitec fit IPD/DSS to their FM receivers they will once again be the *best* on the market but right now they're really showing their age I'm afraid and if you fly in a "rough" enough area from an RF perspective, they're totally eclipsed by the likes of FMA, Berg, etc.

Of course if I could upgrade my E7 to QPCM without sending it on a 20,000 mile round-trip I wouldn't have to use a different brand of receiver -- but that's another story right? :-)

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Nearly all metal geared servos use at least one single plastic/nylon or in Hitecs case the industries toughest M/P primary gear. Volz servos supposedly uses and all metal gear train, there maybe others but they are far and few between). The robotic hobby industry (these guys are horrific on servos and stuff) recognizes Hitecs gear train as the best of the best...

Hitecs' metal gear trains rarely fail. If they do they are replaced free of charge. Not much money to be made here, you send the servo to Hitec they fix and return it to you postage paid...

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Todd

Sorry if I climbed on your back... It sounded like you were throwing rocks in a glass house, so to speak.

Just send the servo to Hitec, tell them its broken. I'd bet the cost of the replacement gear set they'll fix it free of charge.

mglavin

My Feedback: (31)

Jet

SO why single out Hitec? It sounds like all PPM RX's fall into your dated concept... No inteligent decoding or signal recognition and your out of here.

IPD and DSR are hear and making a big splash!

XJet

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to trying to beat-up on Hitec's gear unfairly.

It's just that there are now a goodly number of $50 72Mhz FM PPM receivers on the market with smart decoders -- but Hitec has nothing to match them.

Sure, other manufacturers make plain old FM PPM receivers with dated decoders -- but that doesn't mean that Hitec's offerings aren't also dated. A *good* modern FM PPM receiver does have an intelligent decoder. The fact that other manufacters can build and sell these receivers for the same (or less) than Hitec charges for a "dumb" receiver means that Hitec needs to pick up the ball and start running to stay out in front.

I'm sure that some people can fly all year with a dumb PPM receiver and not see a single glitch -- but if the added protection that a smart decoder offers costs no more, why not use it? One day it could save an expensive model from a tragic end.