billdelong

iTrader: (33)

• Garbage = A62BLS
  • rated for 167oz-in @ 6.0V which compares to Savox 1258 rated for 166oz-in @ 6.0V
    
  • on average I would strip a Savox 1258 gear maybe once a year
    
  • I stripped 3 sets of gears with the A62BLS within 3 months of racing!
    
• Garbage = A80BHM, A80BHMW, A80BHS
  • all 3 servos are rated between 389oz-in to 430onz-in @6.0V
    
  • all 3 servos were marketed for 1/8 buggy when I bought them
    
  • min spec in my 1/8 buggy manual calls for a servo rated 300oz-in or greater
    
  • all 3 servos failed within 10 race days each, 2 with electrical board failure,1 with a snapped pin in gear box
    
  • after I reported durability concerns, manufacturer changed spec from 1/8 to 1/10 recommendation
    
  • no upgrade offered trade in the A80 servos to A81 series, no support
    • this is false advertising and by definition is called a "bait/switch" sales tactic
      

"Garbage" to me is a very fair assessment of what AGF has to offer... I'm sitting on $240 worth of garbage that is not usable in my 1/8 buggy for which I bought AGF product for.


More info here:

• The Good, the Bad and the Ugly about AGFRC servos
  

*** It would be a completely different story if AGF servos lasted a year or more before running into issues, but 10 race days is only 5-6 weeks of racing for me and that is not sustainable/acceptable for what they have falsely marketed.

andreas78

The fets are visible on the bottom, right over the motor. It looks like a two channel PNP / NPN fet (SOIC8 package). But it might be hard to read what's written on it, due to the protection coating.
There probably won't be a pot, isn't it supposed to have a magnetic encoder? It's just a small magnet rotating above an encoder IC.

Andi

billdelong

iTrader: (33)

Here's the A80BHSW that still operates the motor, but doesn't engage the gears and makes a grinding/whining sound like actuator that meshes between the servo motor to the first gear on the bottom has malfunctioned, I can't see any markings on the 3 fets, plus there is a ton of silicone all over the place which doesn't help with visibility either, I don't see any way to compare components on this board to the CT1:



FULL RESOLUTION IMAGE HERE:
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9917569_6k.jpg

frewster

iTrader: (1)

I don't doubt that AGF will make changes to the servos. That's normal in manufacturing. Most any company will make things to spec, put a name on it, etc if the price is right. It would just be nice for companies in RC to provide some proof of these changes, especially when, on the outside, so many "new" products are simply rebrands making big claims.

frewster

iTrader: (1)

Looks like conformal coating to waterproof the board... That certainly does make things more difficult to see! I'll try and investigate mine later this week. I would right now but we haven't had power at home in almost days now.

BlairW

I doubt any Infinity owners think they have Hondas, since Nissan is the parent company

rcbuggy88

lol its Honda --> Acura

the wrench

iTrader: (3)

still waiting on the nitropro servo, but i did get my powerhobby usb programmer (cheapest), i pulled the case apart and the board is agf labeled, i also installed different branded software, reefs, powerhobby, and agf... the programmer was recognized with all three versions, so, unless theres some weird firmware lockout on the servo chipset, pretty sure you can mix and match across all the rebrands...

billdelong

iTrader: (33)

So about 6 race days ago I had snapped a pin on the A80BHM servo in my SCT410.3 and installed my last "new" A80BHMW servo.


Fast forward to yesterday, and that servo failed on me after landing from a large jump... I wasn't even turning the wheels when the servo failed, in my 1/10 truck with only 6 race days on it!


I posted the following video showing what was wrong:




As luck will have it, dragonrage173 replied with a fix!


Turns out the tiny pinion gear on the servo motor had slipped off the shaft and you simply need to punch it back in place and put a drop of red thread lock to secure it in place.


First take note that the A80BHMW is marked as a "CT001" on the bottom right of the following pic, kind of ironic that NitroPro is selling the rebranded servo as the CT1 which also shows up as the A80BHMW on the firmware. Supposedly NitroPro had this issue fixed with their servos and I'm shocked that AGF hasn't applied the same fix to their servos... WITAF!





You can see in the following pic how the shaft of the motor is recessed with the brass pinion raised up, there's no way it can mesh with the lower gear in the gear box:





Before you punch the pinion back down, you need to support the bottom of the motor by removing the bottom plate and flipping it over so it's flush with the microchip under the motor:





Be sure to remove the bottom gear, or in my case I was careful to set the mesh, and then used a punch to gently tap the brass pinion back into place being careful not to crush the microchip supporting the bottom of the motor.





Now you can see the brass pinion is flush with the top of the motor shaft, just need to place a drop of red thread lock on top to prevent the pinion from sliding back off the shaft again!





After re-assembling the servo I was able to confirm the servo is working normal with my servo tester.


This issue has nothing to do with the rating for a 1/8, it's purely a manufacturer defect that will happen no matter what scale you are running, notice the holes pre-drilled to secure the servo motor but there are no screws securing the motor! If this problem returns, then I plan to place a spacer between the microchip and the bottom aluminum plate to prevent the servo motor from dropping down in the servo case which I think is what is causing the pinion to slide up the motor shaft. Regardless, this is a manufacturing defect

ebaltazar

Bill, can you apply this fix to your other AGF servos?

billdelong

iTrader: (33)

I don't know, I have only had this issue with the A80 series, but it would stand to reason that AGFrc would continue using this design for all their servos.

Also worth pointing out that I am racing on a 1/8 track with large triples and I tend to over shoot my landings on occasion with hard chassis slaps... I'm thinking this might cause the servo motor to shift inside the servo case which is causing the brass pinion to slide off the servo motor shaft. If they had used screws to secure the servo motor then this issue would not happen... it's a cheap design that was fixed by NitroPro.

I've got 12 race days on my Nitro Pro CT1 and no issues yet, I do plan to remove the CT1 from my car at some point this week to inspect what they've done differently to secure that brass pinion! I'd be willing to bet they are securing the servo motor with screws where the pic above shows 2 empty holes with the servo motor directly under the black anodized aluminum case.

Chances are these AGFrc servos may not fail for crawlers, on-road and tracks with smaller jumps.

ebaltazar

I will look forward to your findings.

frewster

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the update, bill. I will have to check my A86 servos to see how the motor is secured.

themountain

Nice to see that somebody figured that out !

Losiracer12

iTrader: (1)

Let us know if everything else is identical as well such as the gear materials etc which I suspect that they are