Hitec HS475 Problems
 

Flew my Balsanova 1.20 for the first time this past Sunday. All servos were brand new Hitec HS475's with the new karbonite gears. Once airborne we immediately had problems trimming and the plane seemed to fight us regardless of what we tried. Upon landing we found that both aileron servos had failed, luckily one retained some output which contributed to successfully getting the plane down in one piece. Upon further inspection, one servo would run constantly and the other would rotate freely but had no holding power. There was no abnormal stresses placed on these servos as this was a trim out flight. I talked with Michael at Hitec and he said to send them back for inspection which I will do. If any of you are using these servos you might want to check them for unusual movement or noise. The way I checked these was to run them on my VEXA servo tester.

Happy Flying!

Loopman [sm=confused.gif]

RE: Hitec HS475 Problems
 

Karbonite strikes again perhaps?

But to be fair, I would not consider using an HS475 (or any "standard") servo in a 120-size ship -- I think I saw a note on the Hitec site somewhere recommending them for "up to 60 size" which is what I use them for.

If you pull them apart you'll see that some of the gears are *quite* thin and frail, not the sort of thing that will stand the kind of loads a 120-sized bird can deliver.

Karbonite may be stronger than nylon but it's not tougher and I use the 475s (and the digital version 5475) on nothing bigger than a 60-sized bird as recommended. As a result I've had absolutely no problems at all and I think these are a great little servo.