It all started early on, probably the second or third session. I noticed that the truck would turn left fine, but when I turned right it only went part way, then there was a whirring sound. A mechanical wheezing, if you will. I remember thinking early on "I should look into that", but then focused on the servo arm when it stripped instead. I always knew in the back of my mind that I would be having actual servo issues later on, though. In fact, I was so prepared that I already had bookmarked the servo I wanted were I to need a replacement. It has been ordered as of today.
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| Cruising the vistas.... |
It's Day 26 of the Coronavirus lockdown. I've been running the truck every good day that we've had, and we've had a few of them lately. This past week has been spent in the garden, building my RC course and running the truck. With this servo exception it has been running perfectly.
How To Tell When Your RC Servo Is Dying
All servos are different. Mine in particular is the Tactic TSX45. It's the stock servo that comes with the Axial Blazer, as well as other models I believe.
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| Totally seized up. Will not function. |
I first noticed that the truck was having trouble sometimes getting back to going straight. Sometimes it would lull to the left, then after a quick flip of the wheel, it would straighten back out again. Over time this got to be more noticeable.
What would also occur was usually on startup, and sometimes at random times throughout a session: the front wheels would quiver side-to-side. It would stop after a bit, then later require a quick flip of the wheel, and then it just did it on its own. It got to be so bad that my 3 year-old daughter pointed it out to me once. She's 3.
The last symptom was sudden loss of response. It happened at random times, and usually would be unresponsive when I was trying to turn. I would jiggle it, then it would come back. But that didn't last long. With the other things going on as well, I got about a half a session out of it before the steering croaked altogether.
I'm not surprised this happened. In fact, I was expecting it. Everything I read and saw said that the servo was the weak link on the truck, as it is with most RTR crawlers. But after spending time with this thing, with all the various parts involved to make it run, to have one thing be a weak link..that's pretty good. It's about par with what I was expecting regarding the upgrade path of this machine. Next up would be shocks unless something else craps out.
But I admit that I helped accelerate its demise early on. I was excited, and I wanted to play with my new RC car. So I may have cranked it a little too hard and not paid attention to the servo arm catching on the truck frame. But it didn't matter. The servo and arm were bound to fail. But that's okay.
Today I had a new servo delivered: Savox SC-254MG. It cost me 25 euro. I had read good things about Savox in many places being a reliable, sturdy servo. I got a bit anxious when I ordered it, thinking it might not be the right size or something, but it's almost identical to the Tactic servo.
I bought an RTR because I wanted to play NOW and not have to risk not being able to build the thing from scratch. Looking back I probably could have done it, but I still think this RTR truck was a better decision for me. I knew I would have to get to wrenching eventually, and here we are.
I removed both front wheels for easier access. Then I detached the suspension parts near or connecting to the servo arm. Once that was done I flipped the car back over and disconnected the servo from the frame. I figured I would put it back together in reverse order I dismantled everything. Once I had the servo out, I took the wiring out, which meant I had to get to the receiver to disconnect the old one and wire in the new. After having the new servo connected, I started up the truck and tested it. It was working [whew]. I took the care to tuck the wiring back into the channels so it wasn't all over the place.
I should have mounted the servo arm onto the servo at that point, but instead I waited until after I installed the servo and was ready to remount parts. Had I gone the easier route and did it earlier I would have saved 15 minutes of annoying work. But here we are.
I took it out and ran it around for awhile. I not only did great, but it's clearly a better servo than the Tactic. Much more responsive, tighter, quicker, and stronger when climbing. It didn't get mushy like the Tactic, or turn a softer corner than you wanted. All-in-all a great little unit. It's nice to know I can replace stuff on this truck with affordable parts.
