Servo problem, anyone seen this?

[al_evans]

My servos become "sticky", eventually, even after I disassemble them and clean the conductive strips and contacts. It seems that there's a build-up of some kind of black guck on the screw threads themselves, which keeps the carriage from moving up and down as freely as it should.

I've tried cleaning the threads by holding the tip of a toothpick against the screw and running the servo up and down, so that the toothpick rides up and down in the threads. That doesn't seem to help as much as I would have hoped.

Has anybody had this problem and solved it without replacing the servos?

--Al Evans

[Miracle Boy]

a tooth pick will be too thick at the tip to fit between the threads on thw worm gear. you could either try sharpening up the tooth pick with and exacto knife, or try running something sharper between the threads like a sewing needle. go slow and turn the servo by hand.

Other than that, you could dismantle the servo mechanics and remove the worm gear and then clean it with some alcohol and a toothbrush and then put it all back together.

MB

[al_evans]

Originally Posted by Miracle Boy

Other than that, you could dismantle the servo mechanics and remove the worm gear and then clean it with some alcohol and a toothbrush and then put it all back together.

MB

So I got bored, or too cheap to buy new servos, and tried this. It wasn't really as much of a pain as I expected.

I removed the worm gears and cleaned them, holding them in a folded paper towel soaked with DeOxit Contact Cleaner Wash (no residue, and it worked better than alcohol). Then I carefully screwed the end of a toothpick into the contact carriage from both sides. I accidentally trashed one of them by bending the fingers. Fortunately, I had an old non-working servo I could pirate the part from. I was more careful from them on.

I reassembled them, with a tiny bit of blue Loctite to hold the shaft screws in place.

This seems to work, so far.

--Al Evans

[turko]

Try DeoxIT Dn5.You will love it.Spray on, move sticks repeat, fly.

[HeliLust]

I use deoxid and a small paint brush. Brush on move the sticks, then clean the brush off on paper towel and use the dry brush to soak up the gunk that comes off.

Keep in mind the deoxid leaves residue for the gunk (carbon dust and probably oil residue) to build up, so clean with denatured alcohol after and enjoy clean servos for some time to come.

I have bought many used helis and most all have been lubed with some snake old that does nothing more than attract dirt and make for notchy and binding components.