OK, a few questions to direct the conversation a bit.
1. How do we detect defective gear, such as servos, before we trust our
expensive toys to them? Would it help to get a servo driver and "burn them
in" by cycling them for some set period ?- this will prove the initial
durability of the electronics and motor/brushes, but it won't do much for
the gear sets....
2. Do we need to evaluate the sanity of tossing such expensive equipment
into the air knowing that there are any number of possible weak links in the
system, including but not limited to,
every solder joint on every wire, servo amp, receiver, battery pack and
transmitter
every gear in every servo
every pin in every servo
frequency safety - ie, is some bozo with a parkflyer in the parking lot
down the road flying on my frequency?
or, is some nationally known TOC guru who definitely knows better flying
without a pin..... IT ALL HAPPENS.
Maybe we need to stop trying to spend more money for more reliability,
leading to an ever more expensive hobby, leading to an ever more devastating
financial loss when the plane does crash. I recently lost my 1/3 scale Duo
Discus in a very public crash in St. Louis. I fluttered the elevator. I
was flying too fast. I also had a JR 8411 (that's a $100.00 servo, friends)
driving that elevator. The flutter caused the gears to slip in that servo.
Seems that there is a history of that servo failing under vibration loads,
such as my fluttering elevator or large helis....
I built that plane from scratch. Total materials cost maybe $200.00. It has
become an organ donor; most of the radio gear has been serviced for small
expense. Lots of lessons learned for that 200.00 An acceptable loss. Now,
what if I had paid 3,500 for that ship? Different story. I believe it
would start with my having to look for a new home as my wife would have ....
RC aircraft go in harm's way. Maybe instead of building them more
expensively in hopes of achieving some failsafe status, we ought to build
them more affordably, such that the INEVITABLE loss of the plane won't be as
traumatic. Think of the other advantages.....
Time to get back to building the second Duo. Hmm, what servos should I use?
Lee Estingoy
Overland Park, KS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Nibler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: [RCSE] Hitec 225 strikes again I WAS LUCKY
> I hope this doesn't turn into a complete Hitec bashing thread. The bottom
> line is that Hitec servos DO offer a good value for their cost. As Fred
put
> it, they allow exposure to our hobby (exposure... isn't that something we
> were just discussing??), and save us valuable dollars. I run Hitec servos
> in all but two of my sailplanes, and have never had an issue with any of
> them (I don't run 225s though). I chose brands of higher quality and
> greater reliability to run in my contest planes. To me, this only makes
> sense. Would you put Costco tires on your Porsche then take it out to the
> track? Costco carries decent tires, but nothing I'd put on a Porsche.
>
> I trust what Jack has said about the 225s; he isn't the kind of guy that
> would make something like that up and it has also been previously
discussed
> on the exchange. That specific type of failure, and failure rate isn't
what
> I'd call "acceptable." One exchange member made the comment that if even
> one product suffers repeated failures like this, then the entire product
> line won't be trusted by the masses. I agree with this and hope that
Hitec
> will do something about this specific issue, and quickly. Given their
> customer service track record (that we ALL have either heard of, or had
> personal experience with), I would like to think they will.
>
> I think the moral of the story is simple: don't use the 225s ;)
ESPECIALLY
> don't use them in a $1000 glass slipper.
>
> Jeff
> Will this rain EVER stop??? I want to fly!
>
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