How is this servo?

[SoCaL081]

Savox SA-1230SG for $40? Would this be a good deal? Right now I have a roller I'm building up. Here's a link to their specs:

https://www.savoxusa.com/products/savsa1230sg-coreless-digital-servo#spare-parts

 

[SrC]

On paper specs look great.
For $40. I would give it a try.
For List price I would never. I shy away from Savox these days. Not happy with durability at their price point. Just me. I feel QC has fallen off over the many years. Of 3 purchased in the past 5 years. The 2 Sav 1210's crapped out . Were even poor/noisey/ would struggle to center out the box when new. The upper case's 'Ears' cracked twice. The only servo this has happened with. Cheap plastic I guess??? Savox Cust serv Sucks IMHO. They dropped the ball with them. Sent me back the same 2 1210's, basically said I was SOL. These were unused out the box. A recent purchase sent under warranty with receipt no less. What are the chances that 2 purchased together were anomalies. They were just garbage. Wasted over$160. on them. Ate the loss. Savox will never get another nickel of my money.
Starting to rant, I know.
Ironically for me, many here like Savox.

 

[slick2500]

Plenty of torque but rather slow probably better suited for a crawler.

 

[SoCaL081]

What speed and torque should I be looking for? I also saw those cheap servos that are the #1 sellers on Amazon. What about these? Link below...

https://www.amazon.com/ZOSKAY-Coreless-Digital-Stainless-arduino/dp/B07S9XZYN2/

 

[slick2500]

What speed and torque should I be looking for? I also saw those cheap servos that are the #1 sellers on Amazon. What about these? Link below...

https://www.amazon.com/ZOSKAY-Coreless-Digital-Stainless-arduino/dp/B07S9XZYN2/

A lot of guys on here use those servos. Get the 180* servo though no need for the 270* as 180* is far more than what your steering will allow already. @SrC has a great review of them in the review section.

You pay for what you get. Have 3 of these. Unless you have a BEC voltage of 7.4v, you will not get the full 35KG torque. 6v BEC from a RTR ESC which is pretty much standard on 99% of RTR stock config will ONLY give you 32kg. Food for thought when deciding. Also it is strong enough... But Slow, which is not a great problem for most Basher RC rigs. Just understand that before deciding to purchase.
I always take my supposedly waterproof resistant servos apart and to check and see.
-What I see is that the top unshielded ball bearing has an o-ring on top. It is the wrong size and much too large. When I took it apart it was obvious that the ball bearing was locked due to this wrong over sized o-ring. I have see this on just about every cheap made in China servo. Have tried more than a dozen. I remove the o-ring and place it outside over the expose servo spline, under the servo arm during reassembly. I put some silicone grease under the 0-ring for water proofing. Now the servo will be smoother and much faster.
- I see that the circuit board is NOT waterproofed with a silicone modified coating which ALL name brand servos have. This is a prerequisite for any waterproofed spec'd servo IMHO. Water will migrate into the servo case, so this circuit board WILL corrode if you don't use any readily available Silicone Modified Coating on it while it is apart. I do this to all the cheap China servos.
- The gears are not lubed properly. A generous amount of grease is in there..... however that grease is not n the teeth of any of the gears. So the blob of grease installed during mfr, does nothing for the lubrication of all the gears. They are essentially dry. Poor quality control. I imagine to get the price point where it is. These are relabeled servos that come with many different labels from other sellers.
All in all, for the price and IF you modd the servo like I do, it will serve well. If you don't, you will be replacing it more often than if you buy a known brand servo like Hitec, Savox or Futaba which cost twice as much.
If you address the flaws that I stated above, right away, out the box, it is a decent cheap alternative.
I will follow up and may post pictures of how I mod this servo. I have 3 so far. I treat all new servos the same. Whether name brand or not. Even my 2 Savox 1210's are noisey and horrible at times. So cheaper alternatives are here, although far from perfect.
This 35kg servo must be examined and modded to last any decent amount of time. Beware of this.
Been in the hobby for 35 years and dozens of servos later this is what I have learned regarding servos.

EDIT: I have total of 5 now. They are great for the price and I must say that NONE have failed me yet. As this servo wears even with carefull greasing of all the teeth, slop will develope. But it is still strong and potentiometer centers it well. Quiet when idle. Beats any Savox hands down. There is grease on the gears however its just one blob of grease that nowhere touches the gears teeth. so the gears are dry as a bone. Easy fix. The 180 degree servo is NOT 180 . It is 120 degrees. All of my 180's are only 120 degree sweep. Not an issue for me though. Just be advised of this. The O-Rings are still crushing the top ball bearing and the BB is locked. I still remove the O-ring and just plact over the out put spline before installing the servo arm on. I use these on my Crawler and all my Arrma 6S rigs incuding my 1/7 scale Mojave and Limitless. Infraction. For the price it can't be beat. But, this is not a Racing Class servo. Be advised. But I feel it ranks with Savox and perhaps better. Savox are rebuildable, These are throwaways at a low price. And again I must say, Everyone is working fine. And I abuse these servos.

 

[SrC]

I also have a DS3235 270 degree variant. Received it by error on sellers part.
However, it makes no difference. The Endpoints are not affected in any way. You control/limit sweep angle at the Radio trims/ Endpoint setting.
270 is usually required for some RC Heli's and Planes. Or for custom Robotics projects.
For Surface use, whether 270 or 180 degree sweep, there's no drawback with 99% of the surface rigs out there, IMHO. But as a habit, 180 is what you normally see and buy. Most Surface RC servos are advertised as 180. And in reality many are just 120 degrees, if that, when measured. Still more than enough.
More is ok, less at some point is NG.
I find that with most all of my servo setups, after ST. Endpoints are set correctly, I am only using approx. 90 -100 degrees of the servo's total available Sweep Angle anyway.

 

[joshludden]

What speed and torque should I be looking for? I also saw those cheap servos that are the #1 sellers on Amazon. What about these? Link below...

https://www.amazon.com/ZOSKAY-Coreless-Digital-Stainless-arduino/dp/B07S9XZYN2/

I run these in all 3 of my rigs, working great for what I ask of them for a really decent price

 

[dk10438]

If you’re gonna get the ds3235 you might as well get the pro version for 9 bucks more.

It’s noticeably faster (I have both).

Edit:
Tbh, depending on your budget and build, I’d consider getting a power hobby 729, agfrc or promodeler. Ds3235 is adequate but it feels kind of weird having nice electronics everywhere else and having a budget servo. I’m thinking of a power hobby or promodeler for my limitless…

 

[Jimbobjr]

Plenty of torque but rather slow probably better suited for a crawler.

Crawler guys don’t put up with slow servos anymore either.
That servo above for 40$ is not a bad deal. For the 90$ list price there’s a lot of servos I’d buy rather than it. For the money the 9imod brushless servos are amazing. No one talks about them which is probably why they are still under 50$, 46kg is now 61$. Nearly twice as fast as the one above. Very good servos for the money and can be found cheaper on eBay but you have to wait for them to come from China.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBG4B44...lja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/9imod-Waterp...mzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc

 

[SrC]

If you’re gonna get the ds3235 you might as well get the pro version for 9 bucks more.

It’s noticeably faster (I have both).

Edit:
Tbh, depending on your budget and build, I’d consider getting a power hobby 729, agfrc or promodeler. Ds3235 is adequate but it feels kind of weird having nice electronics everywhere else and having a budget servo. I’m thinking of a power hobby or promodeler for my limitless…

I agree regarding the Pro for $9 bucks more.
Just that it won't offer any benefit if BEC is limited to only 6v.
And the same applies with any other more expensive brand name servo. You won't reach advertised specs if 6v is all you get on your ESC.
>Buyer first needs to know what BEC voltage they have to work with. Need to know if the servo in question will offer specs at a given available BEC voltage.
My DS3235 is rather fast on 7.2-7.4v. On 6v it is noticeably slower. I don't mind this with my On road rigs at all. Not a fan of Super fast servos. For me, Torque matters most. (MT basher rigs) Very fast servos are harder to control ST input for me IMHO. But we all drive differently.
Just me.

 

[slick2500]

Crawler guys don’t put up with slow servos anymore either.
That servo above for 40$ is not a bad deal. For the 90$ list price there’s a lot of servos I’d buy rather than it. For the money the 9imod brushless servos are amazing. No one talks about them which is probably why they are still under 50$, 46kg is now 61$. Nearly twice as fast as the one above. Very good servos for the money and can be found cheaper on eBay but you have to wait for them to come from China.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBG4B44...lja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/9imod-Waterproof-BLS-HV45MG-Aluminum-Brushless/dp/B09B72CSXZ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=9imod+45kg+servo+brushless&qid=1664801737&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjQzIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ==&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc

Those servos only have brass gears. I'm not sure how they would hold up long term.