Servo rebuild...I'm so out of touch!

[-zapper-]

When did servos become a consumable part? lol I remember picking up rebuild kits 15-20 years ago to replace stripped gears for a fraction of the cost of a new servo. My oldest stripped the steering servo in his arrma within like 10 mins of running last night. So of course I went to find a rebuild kit and boy was I surprised, it costs as much as a new servo!

I guess I'll just order a new one but it seems like a waste of a whole servo when it's just one little gear that stripped

 

[CertifiedMike]

Jennysrc.com I just bought a pair of Spectrum 665 servos from there. They were cheap and are working great!

If you want to spend more $$$ theres lots of other options that have replacement gears avail for them.

Check out Nitro Pro servos. I was looking at the FNK-500(?) Its on my shopping list for 2 builds now.

 

[Suburban_Hooligan]

it started about 20 years ago. huge influx o RTR buyers. suddenly 90% of "hobbyists" were to incompetent to rebuild a servo. today I'm not even sure people know the gears can be replaced. why spend 30 minutes rebuilding when you can bolt in a new "up graded" one in less than 10 minutes? welcome to the state of the "hobby" 2026.

 

[Mrgoodwrench35]

it started about 20 years ago. huge influx o RTR buyers. suddenly 90% of "hobbyists" were to incompetent to rebuild a servo. today I'm not even sure people know the gears can be replaced. why spend 30 minutes rebuilding when you can bolt in a new "up graded" one in less than 10 minutes? welcome to the state of the "hobby" 2026.

State of the hobby? More like state of the world.

 

[CertifiedMike]

Its not entirely the consumers fault tho.
There is also a push from spektrum, traxxas... (rtr) to NOT SUPPLY the gears at all. Noobs just never find out about replacement gear servos.
ONLY replacement servos are avail. when their's break and need replaced. Traxxas and Horizon/Spektrum supplied hobby shops will further back this up by not offering servo repair service and telling ppl its silly to fix when new servos are so cheap.
Eventually, hopefully, they find us in the abyss of rtr misinformation so we can set them straight!

 

[RustyUs]

When did servos become a consumable part? lol I remember picking up rebuild kits 15-20 years ago to replace stripped gears for a fraction of the cost of a new servo. My oldest stripped the steering servo in his arrma within like 10 mins of running last night. So of course I went to find a rebuild kit and boy was I surprised, it costs as much as a new servo!

I guess I'll just order a new one but it seems like a waste of a whole servo when it's just one little gear that stripped

I typically will not buy a servo unless I can find spare gear sets for it.

 

[RustyUs]

When did servos become a consumable part? lol I remember picking up rebuild kits 15-20 years ago to replace stripped gears for a fraction of the cost of a new servo. My oldest stripped the steering servo in his arrma within like 10 mins of running last night. So of course I went to find a rebuild kit and boy was I surprised, it costs as much as a new servo!

I guess I'll just order a new one but it seems like a waste of a whole servo when it's just one little gear that stripped

When you say, "I'll just order a new one...." are you buying the same servo?
What servo/RC platform are we talking about?

 

[WickedFog]

When you say, "I'll just order a new one...." are you buying the same servo?
What servo/RC platform are we talking about?

I was wondering that as well. @-zapper-, make sure you shop around. But just so you know, any RC you buy from Horizon branded stuff comes with a warranty. They will replace it free of charge. But it's just going to strip again

 

[-zapper-]

When you say, "I'll just order a new one...." are you buying the same servo?
What servo/RC platform are we talking about?

oh! I'm not completely sure yet. I used to get the nice Hitec servo's back in the day. I have no idea who makes servos anymore, I have to do some research. The servo in question is the stock servo on an Arrma granite voltage. Looks like it came stock with an ADS-5 SRS servo from arrma. I don't know much about arrma, this was a gift he got a few years ago from my dad, so I'm not going to buy the same servo that it came with. He hit a cardboard box and despite having a servo saver, immediately stripped the servo

State of the hobby? More like state of the world.

throw away one time use proprietary world we live in...did you see Apple has a new charger for the iPhone 18? Lol

 

[RustyUs]

The only two servos I ever bought, that I couldn't find spare gear sets for....

Last year they were on sale for $22 & $29... they are just consumables... once the gears wear down/strip/break... I'll just toss 'em. I searched everywhere for spare gear sets for those JX servos and I came up nothing. The other reason I chose to gamble on those JX servos (above) is, 'cause I had very good results from a JX sibling...

The JX CLS5830HV took some serious abuse over its lifetime. I bought it just 'cause I'm comfortable where I'm at in the hobby and like to test some cheap stuff every once in a while. It spent a year in my Kraton 6S before finally wearing down/breaking some teeth. It should have never been in the Kraton in the first place.

$5.90 and we're back up and running... for a few more years.

I later put that JX CLS5830HV in a 1/8 buggy for a while, and then in a SCT until the servo finally took a crap last year. Was four years from a $32 servo, plus $5.90 for a spare set of gears, worth it?

Going to the other end of the spectrum, my most expensive servo's gear set cost $54.99 now. A lot of people don't want to spend that much for a servo. I believe gears were $29.99 a few years back, but still...

 

[hood52]

I had to rebuild a 3yr old Protek a couple months ago. I believe it was around $30 for the new gears, it was alot cheaper than buying a new servo.

 

[xjtorc]

State of the hobby? More like state of the world.

isn't that the truth