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Beware of cheap dangerous servos sold online.


Engine Doctor
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Thought it was time to repeat a warning about cheap nasty and dangerous counterfeit servos that are STILL being sold online on a well known auction site. Most of us already know about these pieces of junk but newer members to the hobby might think they are getting a bargain. THEY ARE NOT!

A member who rejoined our club after a twenty plus year break found a set of four servos online for around £10 complete with assecory pack. The price should have given the game away but he's been out of it for a long time. Plane flew one flight OK then servos decided to lock over with inevitable results. 

The most common counterfeits are of standard sized Futaba servos now now selling for around £14 ish for 4 and being openly advertised with the Futaba logo online,other fakes Inc Tower Pro already a budget servo  but made even cheaper! I have been told there are also Macgregor fakes out there.

Please don't buy these rubbish items and if you already have them fitted in a model take them out of your models and bin them. Also check any second hand models you may buy as its not unheard of for then to be fitted to make sale look good. 

Please bring it up at your next club meeting as newcomers may not be aware of these.

They will cost you a model or even injury . It's not if but WHEN.

The main giveaway is the price . Other things to look for are shiny cheap plastic case mouldings with labels stuck on badly. Poor molding on base of CE mark or country of origin. They can also rattle when shaken as they often contain swarf or solder and wire cuttings inside the case; as we found on a post crash check a couple of years ago.

IF IT LÒOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT USUALLY IS   !

Edited by Engine Doctor
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Yes they're all over Ebay and probably other sites as well.

I've just used their report a problem page to highlight one seller based in China. Probably a waste of time. Ebay's response was..........

 

Thank you for taking the time to submit this report. This information is very important to us, so please be assured that we will thoroughly review it and take action if necessary.
If there's a violation, the action we take depends on how it impacts our community. In some cases, we explain the situation to the seller and the listing will remain on our website. If the item or listing doesn't follow our rules, we may cancel the listing. We may also restrict the seller's buying and selling activities on eBay.
To protect our users' privacy, we're unable to share the action we take. Thanks for understanding. (my highlight)
Note: You don't need to contact us again. Doing so would create a new report and prolong the process.

Edited by Cuban8
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Ebay is a hydra of copycat tat sellers, you report one, ebay (well, once, in a blue moon) does something, the seller vanishes, and two more take their place.

 

Thing is,

 

23 minutes ago, Wilco Wingco said:

I reported these fake servos to E-Bay 2 years ago and they are still allowing them to be sold

 

Ebay itself is not selling them, it facilitates the advertising and monetary exchange.

 

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It would be helpful to create a comprehensive list of any servos which are known to be available as countefeits/fakes.

It is also worth mentioning that there are legitimate clones which are licenced copies under different brand names.

I am aware of the following servos which have been counterfeited, but there must be many more:
 

  • TowerPro SG90
  • TowerPro MG90S
  • TowerPro MG996R
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It's important to remember there are bricks and mortar UK-based shops trading on eBay.

 

They aren't selling knock-off goods on eBay whilst simultaneously selling official stuff in store or on their own website.

 

Always check the seller, eBay isn't a big bad wild place, it's highly convenient when used properly.

Edited by Mitchell Howard
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10 minutes ago, Mitchell Howard said:

 

 

Always check the seller, eBay isn't a big bad wild place, it's highly convenient when used properly.

Hi I'm not saying ebay is all bad as there arem any honest traders on there and agree it's very convenient . Just trying to make sure that buyers are aware "Caveat Emptor" and all that. 

What I have noticed is that many of these servos are listead as UK stock so should come under our UK laws if your unlucky enough to get caught out.

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I use Amazon and Ebay extensively for all sorts of modelling stuff and materials,  but unless it was a bona fide Ebay store of a known retailer I'd never ever buy 'branded' radio gear for the silly prices that you can find. Plenty of ways to enjoy our hobby without spending a fortune but cutting corners in this way is crazy.

Edited by Cuban8
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1 minute ago, Cuban8 said:

I use Amazon and Ebay extensively for all sorts of stuff, but unless it was a bona fide Ebay store of a known retailer I'd never ever buy 'branded' radio gear for the silly prices that you can find. Plenty of ways to enjoy our hobby without spending a fortune but cutting corners in this way is crazy.

Hi Cuban 8 I agree but like yourself I and many experienced modeled know what's what. It the new generation or old modelers comming back to the hobby that are getting caught out.

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Just now, Simon Chaddock said:

It is also perhaps worth mentioning there are cheap servos that is not trying to be something they are not.

Given a duty appropriate to their specification they can work fine for a long time, certainly as long as a cheap plane is likely to last. 

Just don't use them on your expensive pride and joy.

Hi Simon.totally agree but these are not even in the cheap servo category.  They are dangerous junk, possibly ok for robots or car and boats but NOTfor aeroplanes.

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A pity because the price of decent branded standard servos hasn't really gone up that much - if at all they're cheaper! I remember paying £12 for a huge brown Futaba standard servo (with the old exposed pin connector). back in the 70s. What's that the equivalent of now, £60-£70 maybe?

People love a 'bargain' and whether it's fake car parts, dodgy booze or whatever, the ££s will take priority over sanity for some.

Edited by Cuban8
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It’s not even cheap. Now take the Spectrum AR 8000. I know it’s obsolete, and was extensively faked.

The_uk_shop sell at £93.59, brand new, no packaging, photo of back of unit only. Reassuringly expensive.

And last time I looked, these things are sold by Bangood. Note last time I looked, one fake, all fake, never buy there again.

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I reckon substandard cheap servos are also being fitted to foamies from major suppliers from the far east, my sons  ARTF P40 had a rudder/tailwheel servo fail after two flights,unable to handle  the forces from the tail wheel. This from THE major supplier too, all in the name of profit.

Edited by john davidson 1
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I haven’t bought many ready to fly models but I have noticed several servo failures on those that I have. 
 

But are branded servos necessarily better?  The least reliable in my experience have been some smallish ones with yellow output arms which were sold by a major distributor as quality products. 

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22 minutes ago, john davidson 1 said:

I reckon substandard cheap servos are also being fitted to foamies from major suppliers from the far east, my sons  ARTF P40 had a rudder/tailwheel servo fail after two flights,unable to handle  the forces from the tail wheel. This from THE major supplier too, all in the name of profit.

Send it back, it’s in the nature of the hobby excuse tried, county court next step. 
But there is a difference between a fake, and just cheap. At least the supplier has a name, he messed up. A fake makes a fool of the buyer, and the brand having its reputation trashed. 

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I will admit to using cheap servos , mostly Tower pro MG90s , and each batch I get via ebay is different , the arms are not interchangeable , the electronics are a different design , the MG bit differs , some are all metal gears , some just the output gears , and yet I have never had a failure ! The old hextronic  ones from HK  have now all expired , but the Tower Pro seem to last forever !! but do I trust them on my I/C ???  only on the throttle when Ive run out of Hitec or Savox  .

You buy these RTFs fitted with unbranded servos ,  The HK EFX  racer goes like hell as does the tiny Kinetic  what servos do they have ? their casings appear to be identical to some branded ones , I did swap my unbranded servos out of my Tundra for some all metal geared TP90 ones and they have out lasted the foam hinges on the flying surfaces  which are all pinned variety now !

I only fly cheap rebuilds , often given to me in a somewhat bent state  , so I dont spend much on them  and it pays off for me !! But I guess you get what you pays for !! Roll on Black Friday      

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I've rarely had a servo fail - a set of four miniservos many years ago that were bought at a show and were all DOA being the main culprits. However I've had two servo failures in recent years in Durafly models, both were aileron servos that locked over after very little use. So much so that after the first mishap I cycled all of the servos on the next Durafly model that I had, using a servo tested. To no avail- I still had a second servo fail. So I replaced the Durafly servos with Tower Pro or HS55s instead.

There are allegedly lots of fake servos about - very strange given that they are generally low cost items which are being counterfeited you would wonder how it can be worthwhile. Some good points being made in this thread. Even of you buy your servos from a reputable source, you might still encounter fakes in second hand models.

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Been thinking about this over breakfast......In almost fifty years of R/C model flying I can only recall ONE genuine occasion when a servo has actually failed during a flight. A Futaba on the Ailerons of my Hi-Boy back in the early 80s. Throttling up made the model twitch and corkscrew but was OK at idle, so got the 'plane down in one piece. Turned out to be a broken solder joint to the feedback pot (old school with wires soldered to tags) making intermittent contact. I have had servos behave strangely after being stored away for extented times and a few that just seemed to be noisy and notchy for no real reason when I've tested them before use - they never got near a model.

As for budget servos, I have used HXT 900s quite a bit in small models and have never had one give me cause for concern, I have a few other small digital servos that aren't the usual mainstream makes, but I did get them from Servoshop and again no cause for concern with them either. The servos that came with my HK Vampire have done years of service without an issue - including the 'leccy retracts!

Just take care and if in doubt......don't.

Edited by Cuban8
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None of the so called 'nine gram' servos come with any form of grommets or rubber pads to go either side of the mounting lugs, that one would normally expect with a standard size servo.  Maybe this is a contributing factor to servos dying in engine powered models? 

I have found that cutting up the little foam rubber rectangles that come as packing on new double glazing, gives good soft mounts.  These are typically 20 x 25mm and about 3mm thick.  You will need a longer mounting screw and possibly a washer under the screw head though.

Edited by Robin Colbourne
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