Cyclic servos for Knight 50 Sport

[raginredneck93]

So here's the deal.

I bought a crashed Knight 50 Sport about a year ago and I've finally got almost everything I need to get it up and flying. All of the parts to repair the crash damage were a cinch, gotta love how cheap the parts are for this thing, and I've got a good headstart on all of the gear for it.

My question however, is what would experienced Knight flyers recommend for servos for both cyclic and tail? The previous owner had Spektrum DS821's on it, but I'm told that they're not enough for a 50 heli and I tend to agree. I've got a basket of the things and I'm planning on running one for the throttle, but I'd like to step up a bit on the cyclic methinks. I'm an intermediate pilot, pretty comfy with hovering and forward flight but just starting to get into aerobatics. No hard 3D is likely anywhere in my immediate future but I'd like to have the capabilities so that I won't be out buying new servos as my skills progress. I've got an extra 401 that I'll be running on this heli, but I've heard bad things about the 9654 tail servos not lasting all that long. I was thinking Logitech maybe for the rudder?

So anyway, if you were going to be buying servos for a Knight 50, what would you get? Digital? Analog? What would be some good options in each? I don't have unlimited cash but I'm the type that'll wait a little longer and save up a little more if I have to rather than buy junk and have to replace it so let's hear your suggestions.

[THuhtamaki]

Hello

I'm not the one to suggest anything but I'm using Futaba 9252 digitals on cyclic and 9001 analog on throttle and 401 with 9254 digital on the tail of my Knight sport. I also put Futaba GV-1 governor on it...

[WayneBrown]

9252's are adequate. If you want a MG servo, look into the 9455's, couple dollars more each, but only one plastic gear, mine have survived a few crashes without stripping anything.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

9252 here. Great servo for the money.

[Max2342]

I am far from beeing anyhow in the position on giving representative hints but my own impression is that my JR Z9000S are amazing. I paid $94 per Servo which is not so much more than the 9252 but are muuuuch faster. Anyway, i just like them.

Max

[eyeflyhelis]

if money is in question towerpro mg servos from ebay will work $12 each and .16 speed. i know 2 sports flying them for about a year and both do mild inverted flying , loops, rolls.
bluebird 820 servos run around $70 each and are super fast on 4.8v .06 speed.

[raginredneck93]

I hadn't thought of that. I've been using Tower Pro servos in my parkflyer planks for a long time now, and I've had great luck with them. Can't beat the price either.

I don't know if I'm gutsy enough to try $12 servos in a .50 heli though. I'm probably kidding myself in thinking that the more expensive ones are all that much better, but at least I'd FEEL more secure. If one of my parkflyers tweaks out because of a bad servo, it's not likely anyone would be killed. Not necessarily the case with a Knight 50.

[eyeflyhelis]

tower pro 9050 servos use the same gear sets and internals as the older futaba 93xx series, i know this as i have used both and took them apart for comparisons. now the futaba does hold a high qc rating but it think that they really are the same servos, maybe with a bigger tolerance.
i know of a guy who ran the spectrum 820's and he was stripping servos out when my sport was still flying on those tp's.
if you can afford it use better ones but they are an option for poor bastards.

[raginredneck93]

Thanks eyefly, that's a good bit of info. I know for a fact that a lot of brand name electronic devices are basically just cheap stuff that's relabeled, but I do have to admit that I'm not aware of all of the crossable parts ect. on servos. I have no doubt however that a lot of them probably come out of the same factories only with different stickers on them.

Years ago, when I first got into RC, I use to race 1/10 scale off road cars. At the time I was pretty poor and used the old standard Futaba 148 servos for steering, although I gutted the plastic gears on the things constantly. After I'd been in it for awhile, my wife decided she wanted to give it a try so I bought an old used RC10T from a guy, and it came with a Traxxas radio that he'd cobbed out of a busted up RTR Traxxas truck. I started looking at the Traxxas servo in the thing and low and behold, it appeared identical to the Futaba S148's that I was running in my car. After disassembling one of each, I found that they were indeed identical both inside and out, only the gear sets for the Traxxas servos were about a fourth the cost of the Futaba parts. The case was the same with the servos themselves. Same servo, different sticker, MUCH different price.

As I mentioned, I've used a bunch of the little 9 gram TP micro servos in my planks, and although I won't mention any names, I've found that they're tighter, quieter, tougher, more powerful, and center MUCH better than several of the comparable servos that I've tried from "Name Brand" manufacturers. All this and for about a third of the price. Actually, the only micro servos I've bought that I thought were a good value for the money besides the little Tower Pros, are the HS65MG's that I put in my T-Rex 450. Far more expensive yes, but also with a noticeable step up in quality from the "bottom of the line" stuff.

I actually bought a box of 100 9 gram Tower Pros off of Ebay because I was so impressed with them. By buying in that quantity I got them for about $3 each, so not only will I likely never have to buy another micro servo for a plank, they make great Christmas gifts! :YeaBaby:

[Ade_Law]

whilst there are a lot of cheap micros around this isnt true for higher quality digitials. CCPM relies heavily on the servos acting together, if one is less accurate, slower or has less torque than the other 2 then you will get ineractions in flight.

i have flown a knight on high torque analague servos and whist it is safe to fly and does work you can feel the servos not going quite where you point them as your flying around.

futaba 3152 are cheap digitals, the reason they are cheap is that they have a normal ferrite core in the motor. rather than coreless motors like the 9252s use. this means they arent as accurate too so you do get what you pay for to some extent.

for noobs i recomend 3152 they are only 2-3 times the price of 3001 but 10x the servo.

Ade

[raginredneck93]

Thanks for all of the advice. I bought the 9252's for the cyclic, and a 9654 for the tail. Still haven't gotten around to putting the darn thing together, but when I do I'm pretty sure it'll fly better than I can fly it with the gear I'm putting in. :smokin: