The sail servo on my Joysway Focus 1m RC Yacht has suddenly decided to stop working. It has gone very tight and does nothing at all. The servo for the tiller is also behaving in an odd way, twitching as if there is some interference. Has anyone got any ideas? I'm fairly new to RC yachts so any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

Replace the servo. Sounds like it may have gotten wet and gone bad. Standard servo's are cheap.

It may be a radio issue. Pull the receiver out and plug in to a generic servo and see if it works.
If that works, start by testing your servos in the boat. Hopefully that will yield some results.
Also see if there is an RC sailing club near you and ask for help, bet there would be someone there that could help you. Ryan

Many thanks for the help. I'll look into it.

Originally Posted by Gullukman

The sail servo on my Joysway Focus 1m RC Yacht has suddenly decided to stop working. It has gone very tight and does nothing at all. The servo for the tiller is also behaving in an odd way, twitching as if there is some interference. Has anyone got any ideas? I'm fairly new to RC yachts so any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

@Gullukman:
I believe that what you are describing is the classic symptoms of radio problems - it could be either a wet / corroded radio or radio interference as the two most likely causes.

The tight sail servo may actually be Ok - it may have been driven hard one way by the faulty radio. Test the servo separately if you have anything available to do so. Other possibility is that the servo has stripped gears or is otherwise damaged by being driven past its end point. You coupld open it and have a look or just replace it - they are cheap as chips from HobbyKing and many other suppliers.

Hope this helps....

A bad receiver battery can also cause jitter.

Originally Posted by SoloProFan

A bad receiver battery can also cause jitter.

And tired wiring and connections.
The standard servo working the sails on my second hand Victoria was useless in any wind stronger than "moving air" so it was replaced by a cheap hi-torque one. In use, that showed up the need for a new battery and wiring loom, due to jitter.
Assuming the sail servo does not regulate the power to the rest of the system, a quick check is to just unplug the sail servo. If the rudder servo then responds properly, the problem would be unstable battery voltage caused by the load imposed by the sail servo.

Many thanks for all the help gentlemen. I seem to have fixed the problem and all is now working correctly.

Originally Posted by Gullukman

Many thanks for all the help gentlemen. I seem to have fixed the problem and all is now working correctly.

And the problem was.......????

Originally Posted by mrpenguin

And the problem was.......????

Yes, inquiring minds would like to know....

I had a similar problem and it turned out to be a rusty circuit board inside my sailboat servo (for instance)

My new servo got dissasembled, sprayed with Corrosion X and put back together with silicone sealant around the case joints.
Enough of that water damage nonsense!

So let us know, so we can add that knowledge to our data banks.