Bearair

My Feedback: (3)

A flying buddy and I purchased a bunch of the new Power HD 2550A servos from TBM. We have had several failures and were wondering if anyone else had tried these servos and what type of luck you have had with them.

This is not a flame against TBM. They have been an excellent company to do business with and have have answered all my stupid questions and replaced the bad servos with no questions asked. We would not hesitate to do business with them in the future. Thanks in advance guys.

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

I heard good things about these servos so I bought One and put it on the rudder of my 30% yak-54... after about 6 or 7 flights the servo quit working in the air... after it came down I took it out the plane and inspected it... I turned out that the wire to the motor had vibrated lose, I just took out my soldering Iron and fixed it and now it works perfect... I've put about 10 to 15 more flights on it with the servo and no problems so far...

These to me are really good servos, they just need to fix that one little problem they are having, I will buy more.. I'm just lucky it wasn't on a single servo elevator plane!

out of the Thousands of 2550a servos the HD company is selling I wonder whats the ratio of good to bad ones? I don't hear to many bad things about the digital ones though...

What kind of Failures were you getting from them?

freeair

where are these servos manufactured ?

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

my guess is china... Thats What I think the name is, HaiDa RC internatinal Inc. is the name of the company that makes them... could be Tiawan, thats where I think the HD 9660 servo is made...

http://troybuiltmodels.com/newsite/p.../hdservos.html

rcairflr

My Feedback: (44)

I can't belive you guys are having numberous failures on these servos and somehow defending them and saying you would buy more. We have so many good servo choices, why buy junk and risk a airplane. I have been flying since 1992 with JR and Hitec servos and in all that time have only had 1 servo failure.

If your failures would have happened on the wrong control surface while in flight you would have risked a good airplane over a bad servo.

This is all just my opinion, so don't shoot me for disagreeing.

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

Well, I guess To each his own... these servos have a lot of power to be analog and they are not slow either, They are not super fast but they hold there own. I've had servos from Futaba, Airtronics, Hitec, Power hd, Scanner RC... and at least one servo of each brand has failed are burned out on me... I like to give the under dogs a chance because if no one does than those high cost servos might keep uping there prices because there will be no competition.
it also depends on what kind of flying you do and how hard you work the servos...

I think the Power Hd servos will hang in, they are new and probably still have a couple of kinks to work out the system... but like I said out of the Thousands of people that have the servos, The people that Have something go bad on them or more than likely the ones to post stuff about them,
I like to Try stuff out myself and get my own take on things.

People say the same stuff about the chines engines and they are producing some really good, and really cheap engines now... it just takes time.

Bearair

My Feedback: (3)

The issues I have ran into have all been on the ground. A couple would just not work, frozen stiff and I had another strip right after I plugged it into the rx (was not connected to linkage). I have also had problems making the MPI arms work on the servo post as the servo post striped in seconds, IMHO the MPI arms are not that good of a fit. It's quite possible that I just got a few bad one's as that can happen in any manufacturing run. I have had similiar problems with very expensive name brand servo's and was just looking for information becuase these are a new product to me.

As with any new product, I'm sure that these problems will be taken care of. Just to be sure that everyone understands, TBM has been an excellent company to do business with and has replaced all the items I have mentioned with no questions asked and at no cost.

I would be interested to here what experiences you are hearing about the digital servo versions. TIA

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

they have a forum about the digital ones somewhere on here Just type in Power Hd servos in the forum search and they should come up...

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

A little bad news on the 2550a,

I had a freind go out and buy 5 of these servos for his Chin Yak-55 from extreme flight... He said they were awsome servos for the price and he could tell the difference from flying with them over his futaba digitals, because of the torque and speed... but on his 9th flight with it, one of the aileron servos started freezing up on him, and now he said it doesn't work! Good servos but they need to work on the production a bit more to hang in with the big boys... He said TBM's just gonna exchange it with no problem. Thats good, and I hope they are getting on the horn with the factory and letting them know this stuff is happening with there servos, so they can get it fixed ASAP. The last thing they want is the Tower Pro servo Reputation!

His servo wires were also different then mine, I bought mine before he did and mine came with a smaller gage servo wire than his did. I'm guessing they got feedback on this and uped the gage because his shipped with the thicker gage wire, More like the JR high torque servo wire that they should have.

t.j.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

T3 dude I have been calling you , holy cra..p I had 2 more power HD servo failures today, I posted this on another website but here it is agian.;

Man another near death experience today with my yak.

1st flight - range check marginal some glitching at 20 paces and being a retard I decided to fly. About 7 mins in i did a low pass and got a BIG hit , full right rudder, full up elevator, I was ablt to gain control and landed immediately, battery volts was ok, couldn't "find" a problem.

I was flying in an area with 2 large electromagnetic transmitting towers so I thought maybe they saturated the 2.4 GHZ band and that was my problem, I decided to move to a totally different field.

2nd flight - About 5 miles away at a field w/o any towers I did a range check again marginal, glitches at about 20 paces, aircraft going into fail safe. - I should not have flown but remember I am a retard.

I was hand launching the plane with motor at full power when the plane immediately pitched back with 14x4 APC at 10,000 RPM comming towards my face, I let go and dropped to my knees, the plane went inverted behind me full throttle screaming towards ground, I hit full aileron and rolled the plane somehow the nose pitched up and i gained altitude, I turned the plane and again it was getting hit bad, pitch / yaw / roll all overthe place, I chopped the throttle and was somehow able to get a reasonable landing out of it. I then wiped my self and made sure noone saw the brown spot on my pants. On the ground the range check still sucked then, 2 more power HD servos went, the elevator stuck about 20 degrees up and the left aileron was unresponsive.

So my only theory is this, a electrical problem w/in the servos was sending EM interferiance back through the reciever causing the controls to glitch, but 3 servos smoked in 10 or so flights ? seems odd but my JR12x and Ar6200 reciever are brand new, as are the servos. Needless to say I have some work to do but if you have the power HD servos please please be careful

oh i should mention the only control surfaces working reliably are the throttle thats got a hitec servo and the other aileron thats got a futaba servo.

Subsequently I plugged all servos in to a futaba 9c 72mhz receiver, they still dont work so its definately a servo issue, also my wing compartment by the aileron has a fried electrical smell later on I am going to autopsy the aileron servo, but IMO power HD SUX BALLZ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - yes i got mine from TBM as well love the company but man never again for power HD.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Well I got the elevator servo apart and all connections are good but it smells fried, got that distinct PCB cooked smell 4 sure. I have done a lot of electronics work over the years and I have smelled this B4. I dont have any equipt to tell where it is fried but i'll bet T3BEATZ left nut it is.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

well it aint the servo motor, i just jumped a small battery across the poles and it works, its got to be something in the PCB

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Thats it boys, found the defect !!!! its in the PCB, look close at the pic, the resistor is not put on the PCB correctly, there is black char at the base of the resistor on the PCB

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Oh man forund a second defect, this is a servo that failed 2 days ago, on the otherside of the PCB a completely seperate resistor is incorrectly attached to the PCB with associated burn mark. The servo on the your left as you view the picture is working properly and shows the whay those resistors should be. Power HD, I guess the HD stands Highly Defectitve

T3beatz

My Feedback: (4)

This is a Very bad move by Power HD... I will only put partial blame on TBM, because people trust the TBM name and if they chose to back a certain product we all would think it is a good one. how can 3 to 4 servos go bad in 2 days, how could the QC let 4 slip through the cracks this bad!!! He could have been really hurt by this. The pictures of the servos speek a thousand words! My servo problem was just a scratch on the surface compared to this!

He just called me back and said that one of them was burned on the inside also! WOW! that's very bad...

I feel bad because I recommended that he checked them out from the site...

T.J.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Well the elevator servo caught on fire the case was melted shut, I have pics but i am having trouble uploading them, i will post them as soon as I can.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

more pics

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

more pics

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

last 1

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Yea I tell you T3 the only reason i bought these Cra^^P servos was because TBM recommended them so highly. I have dealt w/ TBM alot and I really trust what they have to say, guess they got this one wrong. I will report back on how TBM deals w/ this. I also E-mailed the manufacturer and told them what happened, they need to know b/c people are using these servos on giant scale planes and if you loose one of those birds at the wrong time bad stuff can happen.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

Well I e-mailed the manufacturer and beliee it or not they responded. I give them credit most big companies just blow off e-mails from customers, especially in china. They say that they forwarded my pics to the engineers and they may be contacting me to discuss what happend. In my opinion thats good, at this point they seem to be doing the right thing. I'll keep you updated on what they say but so far i am pleased.

Here was there message:

Dear Joseph,

Thank you for your mail. I'm Chris, sales of Power HD.

We are terribley sorry about the troubles caused. I've transfered the pictures and reviews in the below link

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_7859542/tm.htm to our engineers to check.

More feedbacks will be sent to you asap after the engineers confirm the problems.

Thanks & B.regards!
Chris

XJet

I'll order one of these servos for inclusion in the big servo-shootout and review article I'm currently writing for RCModelReviews.com

rcairflr

My Feedback: (44)

What servos will all be included in the test? Looking forward to the results

Bearair

My Feedback: (3)

I'm glad to read that someone has someone has taken note and the initiative to carry this matter further. I started this thread because I could not believe that I was the only person having problems with these servos and I could not find any posts on RCU about the product. As modelers we are way too complacent with poor quality items we purchase for this hobby. I have been in RC since 1968 and I hardly ever complain about something that I purchase that turns out to be not as advertised.

Thanks for taking the time to post to this thread. With a little luck the manufactor may just develop these servos into a high quality item. We need high quality, reasonably priced servos. In the mean time, please post something when you get a bad item (parts, kits, engines, radio's, everything) and also let us know when you get a good one.

I had my first in-flight failure of a HD 2550 this weekend. Left aileron on a 25% YAK. No disaster but no fun either.

IMHO, The MPI metal servo arms for the HD 2550 are not a good fit. I ended up returning all that I had purchased for these servos.

Crash-n-Burn

My Feedback: (2)

all my servos that failed did so after about 10 flights so be careful eventhough they are working they may still fail. If I were u I would open the case and inspect the PCB and wires carefully.