Too much play in the servo gear mesh
 

I've got an Airtronics 94145 servo that I've been having some problems with. Before I go out and buy a whole new gear set I figured I'd run it by you guys and see if anyone has seen this before.

The gears have a little play in them...something which is not good in 1/12th scale. I first noticed my car wandering a bit then checked the servo and sure enough that was the problem. Irritated me too because it was a brand new servo. Anyway I swapped servos but would like to be able to use this one again so I dug it out to take a look at it. Here's what I noticed...when the servo is centered there is some play in the gears. As I turn the servo to the right the play increases right up until the servo is fully turned. As I turn the servo to the left the play decreases until there is none. This has got me thinking that it may not be my gears afterall...it might be a misalignment in the bearings or something. Anyone seen this happen before?

could it be the servo motor shaft is bent from a crash?

From what you describe, it sounds like the output gear (the big metal one) could be out of round, if you're noticiing increased play at one side of the travel, and decreased play at the other. The big output gear is likely to be the culprit, as it's the only gear that makes a partial turn... every other gear in the gear train makes multiple turns through the servo's stroke, thus if one of them were to be out of round you'd notice play increase and decrease again over the servo's travel...

A metal gearset is pretty expensive though, I'd hate to buy a set only to find out the the problem is elsewhere...

Not likely...it was doing this from the start

That's what I was thinking too...but I didn't want to replace the gear if it was possibly a bearing misalignment. Thanks

You can send it in for service. When I have sent stuff in they only charge for exactly the parts that need to be replaced, and at a reduced rate. So if it only needs one gear, you might not have to pay for a whole gearset.

From a post on Radio Control Zone:

Global Hobby now doing Airtronics service
Ship repairs to:
Global Services
Airtronics Repair
18480 Bandilier Circle
Fountain Valley, CA 92708
tel: 714 963 0329
fax: 714 964 6236
email: [email protected]
web: globalservices.globalhobby.com