Hey!

Had a quick question. I was looking at a Protek (EcoPower) 120t waterproof servo. Look like a good deal for $70. But then I was researching and some people were saying it’s a rebrand of the JX CLS5830HV which is only $32...

Is there any truth to that? I mean the protek logo is cool and all... but if I can buy the same servo for half the price then I don’t care that much. Anyone had both or have any knowledge about this?

Yes, JX is the OEM and EcoPower is a rebrand. Note that servo includes a single plastic gear on the bottom, if you get the JX-HV7232MG then you get all metal gears, it's by far the best servo of the lot, more info here:
EcoPower WP120T Coreless Waterproof High Torque Metal Gear Digital Servo

I personally have moved on to AGF servos, which are smoother and offer more torque/speed for the price:
Servo choice for B6.1

It's true. Many of the servos you see are rebrands. I've also switched to AGF after trying many different brands such as XQ Power, Blue Bird, and Highest (some of Protek's servos are made by Highest) over the years. They're still fairly priced but it was a steal when Banggood was selling the A80BHSW servo for $55. Now it's $70-80. Still worth the price - very solid servos.

Yeah I used AGF too, they rock. Wish their prices didn’t raise, they were fantastically priced.

Thanks for the info guys. Saves me like $40.

Another AGF fanboy here too thanks to Bill

I credit Frewster for turning me onto AGF, ha!

So in the crawler world, Holmes Hobby had a servo that JX had copied. Pretty much an identical copy but using cheaper grade material. The owner of Holmes Hobby confirmed the JX clone and supposedly the JX servo had more durability issues as well, just skimming thru the forums. I own a JX low profile servo ($15 shipped), and it is no where near as fast/torquey as the specs say it is. However, it is $15 so what do you expect.

It is possible JX could be an OEM for Protek (which they are known to rebrand many chinese products). Or it could be a knockoff using cheaper metal. Who knows in this case... I just wanted to point out the Holmes Hobby issue.

"JX servo is a bit of unfortunate circumstance for me. They are a former employee of my OEM, took the engineering work I did on the 12v servos and started JX. Not surprising that they are using cheaper gear and pin materials though, that is standard china practice to make things as cheaply as possible but look like the "quality" knockoff. I can see plainly that they took the entire design from the V1, which had enough flaws to warrant a V2. There is also a "new" 12v servo on the block that JX is supplying. Good luck buddy, I already know what your failure rate is going to be. Better be prepared to lose your shirt or piss off a lot of people. Even my own OEM had some choice words about the quality of JX, and you know it is bad when a chinese company is talking crap about quality.

My v1 gearset should drop into the JX case. If anybody wants affordable gears, give them a shot. I'll refund your money if they don't fit. Most likely, your case is already too damaged to avoid further gear issues though."

I don't believe Protek is an OEM, my understanding is that they are a distributor in similar fashion to what OFNA used to be where they rebrand custom orders from generic manufacturers in China. I can probably point out close to a dozen different OEM's of their rebranded products. Protek is vastly overpriced (middle-man) where you can get the same product (different label/packaging) direct from China for a fraction of the price.

If you go onto Alibaba, you can make your own custom rebrand if you make a minimum purchase of X number of units, that's basically what Holmes Hobby did. I don't personally know Holmes Hobby, just explaining how the process works to my understanding.

*** UPDATE
Here is an example of an AGF servo where you can get a custom Logo/packaging if you order 200+ units:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...6e253a87y1NOwf

...aaand another
Their price /quality relations is unmatched
I have three different models and they have been great for the last year.