flashing lights, no steering, melting servo..

[titan86]

Hey all,

So Ive a little trouble, since I bought the Typhoon 3s its had steering issues. arrma uk ( through my retailer ) took the car back and swapped the servo for a better one. a bit bigger and stronger I'm told. it failed again, but started working so we left it as was

today the steering stopped working again ( I'm a normal / mild user, not exactly bashing ) and I got flashing lights on the car, so stopped and looked and it looks to me that the servo is melting on the top.. and from what I can tell, if I switch on the car, it slowly looses power ( on standstill ) and smells questionable.

any advice would be great as I'm abroad with it and its kinda dead

if there is a reset I should do, please can someone advise where a link may be as I'm not technical at all and know nothing lol

Thanks

 

[RCbuzz]

Whoa, that does look like it's melting. If you unplug the servo from the receiver does the car work normally (Minus steering of course)?

Did you setup the end points? Melting is usually a sign of overcurrent which is usually a sign of poor end point settings (servo is trying to turn past the stopping point).

If this servo has died, you have a couple options.

You can reach out to Horizon and they may setup a replacement (stock s651 servo). They are okay servos (my luck has been hit or miss). Arrma (in the US) has a 2yr warranty, they do require a purchase receipt.

You could upgrade to a 6s servo (S652) I have good luck using them on 3S cars and they use the same spline servo saver, 23t.

Upgrade to a better aftermarket servo and also buy a new 25t spline servo saver. Almost all aftermarket servos are 25t (not the Arrma 23t).

 

[gotnitro]

Servos constantly try to RIGHT themselves or go back to the setting you have in your TX. If there is any type of binding in the bell cranks or steering in general OR that particular servo is weak which from the looks of it, it's a horizon servo, weak, they can heat up internally from trying to right itself and cause what you are seeing.

There is no such thing as overkill in a servo. Buy the strongest you want to afford.

 

[SrC]

Whoa, that does look like it's melting. If you unplug the servo from the receiver does the car work normally (Minus steering of course)?

Did you setup the end points? Melting is usually a sign of overcurrent which is usually a sign of poor end point settings (servo is trying to turn past the stopping point).

If this servo has died you have a couple options.

You can reach out to Horizon and they may setup a replacement (stock s651 servo). They are okay servos (my luck has been hit or miss). Arrma (in the US) has a 2yr warranty, they do require a purchase receipt.

You could upgrade to a 6s servo (S652) I have good luck using them on 3S cars and they use the same spline servo saver, 23t.

Upgrade to a better aftermarket servo and also buy a new 25t spline servo saver. Almost all aftermarket servos are 25t (not the Arrma 23t).

+!!

 

[RCbuzz]

Just an observation from the photo, it is not the capacitors on the ESC wire that is causing the cover on your servo to melt? Just be sure, if it's the capacitors you might have a short or bad caps under the heatshrink.

 

[Tex Koder]

Just an observation from the photo, it is not the capacitors on the ESC wire that is causing the cover on your servo to melt? Just be sure, if it's the capacitors you might have a short or bad caps under the heatshrink.

Good Observation!

It does appear there's something going on at the Capacitors.. You can see a small section of the shrinkwrap blown out.

 

[titan86]

the servo they gave me is oversized and it rubs on the servo ( between the cover and servo ) I checked it was not hot, so I disregarded it

Whoa, that does look like it's melting. If you unplug the servo from the receiver does the car work normally (Minus steering of course)?

Did you setup the end points? Melting is usually a sign of overcurrent which is usually a sign of poor end point settings (servo is trying to turn past the stopping point).

If this servo has died, you have a couple options.

You can reach out to Horizon and they may setup a replacement (stock s651 servo). They are okay servos (my luck has been hit or miss). Arrma (in the US) has a 2yr warranty, they do require a purchase receipt.

You could upgrade to a 6s servo (S652) I have good luck using them on 3S cars and they use the same spline servo saver, 23t.

Upgrade to a better aftermarket servo and also buy a new 25t spline servo saver. Almost all aftermarket servos are 25t (not the Arrma 23t).

going to try this, but I'm going to have to google as when I said I'm not technical I mean I don't know how to unplug the servo from the receiver lol... I usually take it to the shop down the road that charge very reasonable, but I'm currently on the third smallest inhabited island in the world..

 

[Tex Koder]

the servo they gave me is oversized and it rubs on the servo ( between the cover and servo ) I checked it was not hot, so I disregarded it

going to try this, but I'm going to have to google as when I said I'm not technical I mean I don't know how to unplug the servo from the receiver lol... I usually take it to the shop down the road that charge very reasonable,

but I'm currently on the third smallest inhabited island in the world..

Iceland??

 

[SrC]

What you have is a servo dead short. Its fried. Been there. Why I don't know, in your case. But that servo is toast for sure. And very possibly wasn't installed correctly??
Check that the BEC volts of your ESC is correct. A failing BEC or even the Rx can also cause this. Weird that 2 servos in row failed..
Yank that servo out for starters. It is useless now. Get a closer look at all your wiring, Test the BEC volts with a DVM. If that Cap pack is questionable, could also be causing a dead short as well. Common with those OE cap packs. Need to take off its shrink wrap to inspect it better. Been there.

 

[slick2500]

Iceland??

Isle Of Man.

What you have is a servo dead short. Its fried. Been there. Why I don't know, in your case. But that servo is toast for sure. And very possibly wasn't installed correctly??
Check that the BEC volts of your ESC is correct. A failing BEC or even the Rx can also cause this. Weird that 2 servos in row failed..
Yank that servo out for starters. It is useless now. Get a closer look at all your wiring, Test the BEC volts with a DVM. If that Cap pack is questionable, could also be causing a dead short as well. Common with those OE cap packs. Need to take off its shrink wrap to inspect it better. Been there.

BLX100 has a fixed BEC voltage of 6.0v.

My money is on end points not being set as the issue here. You could put the best servo on the planet in there and it will still die if the end points are set too far out.