I consider the HK15158A to be the best bang for the buck tail servo for a 450, and it's usually stocked in the US warehouse too.

@turbojoe, if that HK9257 is the Goteck, keep a close watch on the servo temperature, it can easily overheat. If you reduce the gain to the point where it only gets warm, it flies OK, but the 15158A is better for less money.

this is what I use on most of my tails, 450 & 500.

My question is, with the disapperance of the Turnigy MG930 what are folks using for cyclic servos.

I use these http://www.valuehobby.com/radio-syst...vo-es9258.html on my Protos , and like them . Now since i can't find the Turnigy servos , i will be changing all them over when they seem to die.

Those emax servos have a great spec - but I recall beenflying posting that their actual speeds are more in line with regular 9257 clones, i.e. 0.07s. Whatever, if they fly well, that's the only important thing, but they are double the price of a 15158A. Do you run them at 6v or are they 4.8v only, like the Futaba 9257?

I use a 5.1v reg , then i throw a diode on the red line to drop the volts to the receiver . They say 6v at the website but when you get the box it says 4.8v . I have been running them on my 500 and 450 tail for over a year and no problems . But i never actually tested the speed but work with my gyros fine . For the cyclic , i needed to turn down the dual rated more than normal , but If you want instant input its there

I'm hoping I got lucky and got a good 9257. While it hasn't endured much in the way of flight loads yet so far it does have probably an accumulated 1.5 hours powered up while making other adjustments and short hover tests. I'm using a Castle Creations 10 amp BEC and it is set at the default 5.1 volts. I'm old school 72 MHz and still don't trust any of my Spektrum stuff due to all the brown out issues I read about so I feel the extra "headroom" of the 5.1 volts may hopefully be a little extra insurance. I do have an AR7000 in this bird for now only because it was in easy reach when I built the bird.

As I've said before my fused left thumb means I will never be able to fly anything more demanding than hover and basic sport flying. I did a few flips and rolls with my Beam 450 but that is about as far as I'll ever progress so the tail servo will never see much in the way of loads that should tax it. I'm wondering if just a standard servo would work OK for my needs. The HS-85 I had on there actually held fine in hover. Far too often tail servo suggestions are made based solely on 3D performance and that makes servo selection so hard (and expensive) for those of us that have no desire to fly inverted backwards piro flips during an autorotation landing.

Weather sucks today so I don't get to do any test hops to see how the servo holds up. Maybe tomorrow.

Joe

Originally Posted by jombo

I use these http://www.valuehobby.com/radio-syst...vo-es9258.html on my Protos , and like them . Now since i can't find the Turnigy servos , i will be changing all them over when they seem to die.

good choice, now on my favorites list.....

Originally Posted by jombo

I use these http://www.valuehobby.com/radio-syst...vo-es9258.html on my Protos , and like them . Now since i can't find the Turnigy servos , i will be changing all them over when they seem to die.

I use one of those on the tail of a 450. I also have the 5.1v and they can't go over 300Hz so set up your gyro for 270

Mine is lightning fast. Much faster than my old futaba 9257

Originally Posted by mhills51

I use one of those on the tail of a 450. I also have the 5.1v and they can't go over 300Hz so set up your gyro for 270

Mine is lightning fast. Much faster than my old futaba 9257

Might be faster but how is reliability as well as longevity? Just curios because I've had several "off" brand servos fail, they will perform good or even better then "name" brand servos but die in a very short amount of time due to just plain old poor quality. I would hate to lose a nice heli to a cheap servo.

I picked up an HK 250 heli last weekend that was partially built.The servos were installed but not the electrics. Servos were new. All four servos were EMax ES08A micros. While setting up linkage all servos were working fine then all of a sudden the pitch servo wasn't. It just up and quit. While the others seem fine when I opened the dead one the motor smells badly burned. Gear train is very tight even with the motor and case top removed. That's most likely what caused the failure. Servo tester showed 4.8 volts from the RX at all servo ports so voltage was not an issue. Because I had to tear the heli down completely to remove the bad servo I went ahead and put in a set of HS-45s I've had on the shelf forever. Good thing the servo failed on the bench rather than in the air. I don't want to be anywhere near this little "hummingbird on crack" if there's a control loss in the air.

Looks like it's all the luck of the draw anymore. Some have really good luck with an item while others get the bad one in a batch. Now I'm starting to see bad reports on the HKS9257 I just got for the 500. It's working fine so far on 5.1 volts. I'm not going to risk 6.0 volts though. I hope I got lucky and got the good one in the batch......

Joe

I have always had good luck. One thing people don't pay attention to is the frequency and volts. If you go over with either the servo will not last long. Most just see digital and set their gyro to max digital at 333Hz. That extra 33hz may not seem like much. Also a lot of cheaper servos have these limits, but don't list them. Take the servo we are talking about. Most sights that sell it say 4.8 to 6 volts. On the side of the servo it only list 4.8

My rule of thumb is to always check my voltages on the bench when installing new servos and I only run 4.8v to 5v on any servo that isn't specifically HV. If your not a crazy smack 3D pilot then there really is no reason in my mind to run at 6v, if you are that kind of pilot then you should probably have HV servos anyway and not even think about putting cheap servos in the heli.

Originally Posted by JLink125

My rule of thumb is to always check my voltages on the bench when installing new servos and I only run 4.8v to 5v on any servo that isn't specifically HV. If your not a crazy smack 3D pilot then there really is no reason in my mind to run at 6v, if you are that kind of pilot then you should probably have HV servos anyway and not even think about putting cheap servos in the heli.

+1 been there and done that

Originally Posted by mhills51

One thing people don't pay attention to is the frequency and volts.

My GP-750 gyro provides two frequency settings. Standard 1520us and 760us. I'm set to the wide band 1520us and digital as suggested in the manual. Servo doesn't even get warm. I'd like to stay with 5.1 volts to avoid possible brownouts with the Spektrum RX and it's the default setting in the CC BEC. Hopefully that extra .3 volts won't be an issue for the servo. Comments on this voltage are appreciated.

It's windy right now but I went to the doctors office parking lot down the street to try to find some shelter from the wind. It's surrounded by 4 foot walls and some trees but it was still really choppy. The 500 didn't seem to mind much. With a few trim clicks I was able to hold some nice stable hovers. It's been close to two years since I've had a heli in the air outside so I only did some 25 foot forward and back movements and a few very slow piros in hover. I wasn't going to try any circuits in that very confined area. Maybe next weekend I'll take her down to the park and see how she does. Now that I've finally gotten this bird in the air I'm wondering why I ever sold my Gaui 550 without ever flying it. Now I wish I still had it. I think my 450 helis will be going away soon.

Joe

Emax servos are terrible..i'd stay away form them..have had several and they are not shielded at all and will get glitchy from other seros or electronis..and have had them fail and burn out as well....beware of them...