Is it better to replace or fix a servo?

[Heli man01]

Hey guys,

I am in need of some advice. Is it better to replace a gear train in a servo that stripped out, or just replace the whole unit itself? I am asking because I dont want to take a chance and fix them just to find out they are fried. What are your opinions?

BTW they are align DS410M's on a 450 pro fbl v2

[Slyster]

Servos strip all the time in crashes. We just replace the gears and then test them. Give a little force with your fingers and move them up and down after repair to test them out.

[michael503]

depends on the servo. Some tolerate stripped gears better than others

the 410s have a reputation for being unreliable and are notorious for burning out after a crash due to damaged gears stalling the servo. They seem to be pretty unforgiving of being stalled. I've seen this first hand. You can test them, of course, but it's still a crap shoot. I've seen this particular servo fail when you just power it up.

Charlie and Emil, are you reading this?

Not to say that they're all bad, they just seem to have a higher burn out rate than other brands, perhaps because they are so common.

Personally, if it were me, I would not trust them and I'd get a set of almost anything else.

[Slyster]

Agreed. I had issues with the 410's not initializing half the time when I had a 450... I replaced them with Hitec 5065mg's. Great servos. You might want to replace all 3 Heliman.

[michael503]

Ya, the 5065s are great. for 25 extra bucks you can get a programmer and dial back the servo stall power to 50%. It may save the servo in a gear bending crash

[Carapau]

+1 for the 5065s with the programmer.

Ive been using them now for some time and almost prefer them to my DS95s.

Now I know some people might be going WTF but in flight I can't really tell the difference, but when I crash my DS95s always need to be re-centred which means taking the servos out of the frame for a proper inspection and then re-set. What a pain. Because of having dialled down the stall to 50% on the Hitecs I have never had a problem and I have also not had a stripped gear with them yet either. Has there been a stall in flight when pushing them hard- not even close.

5065s with the programmer are simply the mutts nuts.

[scottyay]

If you have spare gears for your servos and have to rebuild one that turns out to be fried, then you can just pull the gears back out and replace the servo and you will still have a spare set of gears for next time. It isn't nearly as common to totally destroy a servo in a crash as it is to just break gears.
If you run the ds410's it's a good idea to keep a couple spare plastic servo cases too, as they crack easily in a crash.

[belcom]

I agree the 410m were pretty bad for me when I had an Align 450. First crash burnt 2 of them with broken gears. If you want something bulletproof the Hitec HS-65mg are very tough. Analog version of 5065 but known to have a very good survival rate.

[kavic5150]

Arent those DS410s just rebranded Savox servos? And we are talking 450 size helis right?

I've used Savox servos for years and only recently burned out a tail servo and replaced it with another Savox.

What I'm thinking is Savox are ok, maybe a bit more prone to early death vs other similar size servos. But theres something more to this story. A 450 is much more likely to be flown several times daily, mostly in the front or back yard.

The bigger the heli the greater chance you are lugging it to a local park or club.

And remember the majority of servos still use brushed motors, right?

I would buy a few sets of replacement gears and go that route before investing in an uprgade that might not make any difference.

Just my $.02

[scottyay]

The 410's performed fine for me and yes they are rebranded savox servos. My main issue with them was their crash-ability and their sloppiness. I can handle replacing gears, but those cases crack so easily and the costs add up. They also seemed to get slop in the gear-train pretty quickly even if you don't crash them. I think they should have used 4 screws in the design instead of 2, maybe the servos are flexing or something. Sloppy gear-trains didn't cause a crash or anything, I would just prefer them to be slop free.
Anyways I'm using ds95's now so rest assured that I will rebuild before I replace.

[youturnjason]

To answer your question OP, if the servo still moves, or you can hear the motor spinning but it jams/crunches when you give input, then it is just the gears. If it doesn't move at all or is intermittent then its burnt out.

Maybe I'm just lucky but have had plenty of crashes on my 410's. First crash gears stripped so i replaced with the metal gears, since then I've only broken the servo horns, but the servos are still going strong.