FG Baja Throttle servo problems?? help pls!

[carlito]

Hi all

I have an 1/5th scale FG Baja buggy and love it to bits!

Recently had an incident where the throttle jammed open and scared the $h** out of me!

Luckily I was right near the car at the time and manadged to jump on it and stop it by the kill switch.

After some investigation, it turns out the circiut board within the throttle servo had burnt out.

I was told by the guy I bought the car from in Hobbystores that it had happened because the servo had probably been binding either on the brakeing action or possibly the throttle side.

Anyway, I bought a new Futaba S3305 servo and adjusted the end points on the throttle and brake so the servo avoided binding and making a buzzing sound.

All seems to be fine so far.

Me and a friend were out today running them as he has recently got a Baja too and has only had it a couple of weeks.

we were doing some straight line dragging over a fairly long run on full throttle and while my friend happened to run through a deep puddle in the park we were running them at and his throtte servo stopped working. We removed it from the car and saw the same melted casing marks under the servo and upon opening it...it had burnt out too.

I don't know if it was the fact that he drove through a puddle and the servo get slightly wet from inside or that as we were on full throttle for a few long runs that did it??

Any help appriciated as to why exactly this happens and what's the best solution to it.

Is it worth upgrading the servos to torqueyer one's as I was told this may be an option?

The Futaba S3305 costs £36 or so. Is there a better equivalent avaliable for a little more money?

All help appriciated!

 

[Timmahh]

servo burn outs are usually cuased from iproper EPAs or extended stays in failsafe mode. if the EPA it set to far, it will put the servo at the limits of the linkages, and the added push against the physical limitations of the linkage, and its create extra heat and stress that will burn them out.


the HPI Baja 5B servos are water resistant, but not waterproof. but they should of been ok with a puddle unless it was a knee deep puddle. lol

 

[Bigger the Better]

The S3305 servo has only 124ozin of torque and that is at 6v. In my opinion it is not the servo for both throttle and braking. A good high torque servo is needed for a brake servo. The S3305 servo would be best kept as a throttle only servo even though it is still slower then a higher torque servo.
I would recommend if you are going to upgrade or spend more on any certain parts that it be in the electronics.
I run both the DS8711, and the Z9100T. They are more money at 130/140.00 US but after many burn outs, failures, or runaways spending more on your electronics pays off.
You need to also run a RC Killswitch. Its not like a failsafe its a kill switch. It will cut out the motor in an emergency or at least allow you to cut it off before it runs away.