wet servo

[dag]

ok i've read these in here before but now its happened to me. my boat flipped and took in some water. first thing i did was check the radio equipment and it seemed to be pretty dry. then i notice the throttle servo was jammed into the closed postion and would not move. I took the boat home and used a hair dryer and took apart the servo best i could. I could not get the servo all the way out, there was too much to take apart. (it's a nitro hammer). I let it sit over 24 hours now and the servo is twitching once i turn on the radio controller. there does not seem to be a full range of motion. The rudder servo is fine. question is do i still have a chance here? will WD40 help? or time to buy a new servo?

[DLM]

Take servo out and put in new and on a rainy day take wet servo apart and use Corrosion-X from Randy Naylor of BBY boats or Trent Hare uses wd-40 and let set in sunshine for a few days upside down and put light white lithium grease in gears. Keep a close eye on gears when you take apart and mark each gear with a marker like first gear mark 1 and second 11 and so forth. If you don't, you will start talking French and etc. C-X can be used on rx and let dry a few days.

[Ron Olson]

DO NOT use WD-40 inside a servo! It will eat up the circuit board and ruin the motor in there. I was stupid enough to try WD-40 in an electric motor back when I was racing R/C trucks and ruined it. I have used Aeroplate in a reciever after a dunking and saved it. Check that out for water also if you haven't already.

[DLM]

TRENT HARE said he uses wd-40. One other item , Trend- i tried to buy trend and they wouldn't give me a dustributor to purchase it from the boss of trend said i can't help you and to make matters more positive, i copied the message he sent me and if you want i can send you what he said. I'm not trying to start trouble and anything of the like but these are facts and the copied message will verify what i have said. I think that i should retire cause you don't believe me anyway, well good-bye!!

[Atlboatboy]

I had an Electric HPI MT. One day I was driving it on a cliff above a river and it hit a stump and went into the river. Nothing was water tight since it is on road, anyway, I took it home, put a clamped a hair dry above it so it blew on it, and kept it there over night, next day ran fine. So in short, wait a little longer for it to dry out, and I it still doesn't work, I think it is time to get a new servo.

[dag]

well before i had a chance to read these replies i sprayed everything down with WD40. (except the gears in the servo because i can't take that apart) i even sprayed the circuit board in the reciever and it is still twitching like a drug addict. seem to have full range of motion but still twitching once the radio controller is turned on. Does this mean its the reciever? It only freaks out when I turn the controller on. but the rudder is fine

[bufferoo]

DAG

IS this only happening with the one servo? If so, try it in the other channel on the receiver and see how it works. If it doesn't twitch then the problem would seem to be with the receiver.

If it still twitches then it would most likely be the servo.

If you've got the servo open check where the leads are soldered onto the board. There may be a break in the connections or even a break in the copper cladding on the board.

Basically, if you can run a different servo in either channel and NOT have the issue happen, then it's a good bet it's the servo and not the receiver and vice versa.

Eliminate one problem at a time. With electronics like this, it "usually" an either\or kind of deal. Either it'll work, or it won't.

Glitchyness (is that a word?) like this shouldn't be the fault of the circuits but rather a bum connection or bad motor.

Unless this is a particularly good servo, ask yourself if it's really worth the time and effort to diagnose only to find out that you have to chuck it anyway.

As it was the throttle servo, I think this is the RC gods way of telling you to get a new high torque servo for the steering and move the current one to the throttle position. Hmmm?;) ;) ;)

Bufferoo

[dag]

buff

i took everything apart and did what you said. It seems as if it is the servo. i noticed a little bit of corrosion on the outside of the motor. is there any thing I can do? now that its apart I think i'll let it dry a liitle longer and see what happens. any idea what a new servo costs. its a futaba sx-100 if that helps.

Thanks for the help

[bufferoo]

This is just a suggestion. You can get a similar servo at WAY better prices off eBay, but this is generally what you'd be looking at for the steering servo.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXDWF8&P=7

Hope this helps.

Bufferoo