Kraton My servo / steering (locking left, locking right) is freaking out. (need help)

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East tactics

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Pleasant Grove
Arrma RC's
  1. Kraton 6s
Whats up everybody, got a weird issue that started happening with my vehicle. Im not sure whats going on. All of a sudden my steering started twitching, I found myself constantly adjusting my my alignment (like every 10 seconds) cause it kept changing... then all of a sudden the steering just locked to the right. My car would just driven in circles. I inspected the system for broken parts, everything is fine. When the vehicle is on the servo jerks to the right and holds at full turn. When turning the vehicle off, the steering unlocks and I can move it full range right and left. After I turn it back on... it immediately goes back to full right.
When the vehicle is on every once in a while it goes back to normal and works fine for a few minutes... then it all starts happening again.
Is it my servo, is it my ESC, is it my remote, or receiver? no clue

A history or issues I've been having that may shed light on the issue. Not sure if they're related.

last week the yellow lead terminal on one of my 3s batteries broke (rattling around, back and forth movement, it just broke)
I was frustrated because I couldn't fix it because it broke so close to the battery, I was worried trying to solder it would create sparks. so I left it as is, and just charged the battery without the balancing leads... knowing that over time, the cells could start showing deviation
so the battery was fine, just can no longer balance charge it. Figured i might have 5 or 6 cycles with it before the cells start getting out of wack.
(Im on run 2, and am seeing the above servo issues)
I have since repaired the balance lead, but did run it a few times after charging it without balance of the cells.
Ive since fixed the yellow terminal and can now see the cell levels, I did find that one of the three cells is lagging behind the others. After completing this run. (the run with issues with my servo) I did find after my car shut off from low volt cutoff when checking their status, one cell was off from the others (3.59,3.70,3.70)
The the question is... does having one cell slightly off from the others create a power issue presented to the system, possibly making my servo malfuction?

The other wierd thing thats happened with my Kraton:
The other day (before I found the issue with my servo locking/running on the battery with an unbalanced charge), I showed up to a bash site and turned on my vehicle, I had absolutely no power to the drivetrain, I had power to the steering. I couldn't figure out why when pulling the trigger I got nothing. I ended up having to head home, I did some research and found a video of a guy having a similar issue. had to hold down the set button, power the esc on and pull the yellow motor terminal off, and ultimately was able to reset the esc to default... that worked, power came back to my drive. I thought it was fixed.
however the next morning, I decided to go back to the bash site, i balanced charged both my batteries to full. the battery with the cell issue took much longer to get the third cell up to full 4.20, but it did. before leaving, I checked to see if my car drivetrain was working. turned the car on... and it worked. Thought everything was good. Tossed the car in my truck, batteries hooked up... but vehicle off (naturally).
then 10 minutes later when arrive to the bash site, I go to turn my vehicle on... and lo and behold the power is gone from the drivetrain. Steering was working. I remembered what that vid told me to do and proceeded to pull the yellow motor terminal, and tinker with the esc again. ended up reseting it a second time. Got the power back to the drivetrain. was running it about 5 minutes and the steering went wack on me, first locked left... went back to normal for a bit, then locked right. twitching and gliching as if I was near some massive cell phone tower messing with my receiver, thought that might be the issue actually... but when I got home, I turned the car back on and found the issue happing at my house too.

and now im here.

Any help would be appreciated.
I wondering if the battery is the issue... but not convinced, and am wondering if a veteran basher has been down this road.
 
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I guess a possible power surge could've started issues with the servo, though I don't think the battery is the cause of that issue. Power from the battery runs through the ESC first. I'm thinking the servo itself just happened to have gone haywire, so to say. It can happen, though it's not very often. If you have a separate servo, try using that to see if you get the same issue. If you have to purchase a new servo, amazon has some very decently priced and decent servos to buy, DS3225 is a popular one and tested by many here.
 
Quick guess: It's the servo.

What I suggest though, re-calibrate your TX ravels to the receiver and ESC per manual. Maybe the power surge did something bad but easily fixable.

All your battery issues have nothing to do with steering. Battery power goes to the ESC and generates the voltage for the receiver.
If you had power issues you would get more problems from the ESC.

Your battery itself should be fine, just has less life and less capacity. Most likely you stressed one cell due to not charging properly and it's the weakest link. Use it until it is too annoying.
 
Cool. Thx for the help. Sounds like I should be pretty confident that it’s not my batteries. And more than likely it could be my servo. I do have the stock servo lying around. However I’ll be really bummed if my servo went out, I spent good money on the savox 1210. Plus… I plan on installing an external BEC to power my SAVOX up to 7.4 V. Maybe simply pumping it up to 7.4 V will snap it into line. we’ll see
 
Anyone else got anything on this?
I might have found the issue for anyone still listening (hearing crickets in this thread)
No worries though, I might have went a little over kill on the length explaining my issue. ha ha

Anyway... what may be the issue is that fact that Im not running a "Glitch buster" with my Savox SW1210SG Servo. What is a Glitch buster, well I had no idea until recently when I was clicking around on Amazon and came across and updated listing of my servo. looks like they no longer sell it without one. A Glitch buster now comes with it.
So I looked into what a glitch buster is, and well.. the name pretty much spells it out, but it suppose to clean up the twitching and buzzing the emirates from your servo/esc relationship. So, I also found out the an external BEC is also a glitch buster (plus increased voltage) so... hopefully when I instal the external BEC, my problems are resolved. Will keep you all updated. Thanks
 
I might have found the issue for anyone still listening (hearing crickets in this thread)
No worries though, I might have went a little over kill on the length explaining my issue. ha ha

Anyway... what may be the issue is that fact that Im not running a "Glitch buster" with my Savox SW1210SG Servo. What is a Glitch buster, well I had no idea until recently when I was clicking around on Amazon and came across and updated listing of my servo. looks like they no longer sell it without one. A Glitch buster now comes with it.
So I looked into what a glitch buster is, and well.. the name pretty much spells it out, but it suppose to clean up the twitching and buzzing the emirates from your servo/esc relationship. So, I also found out the an external BEC is also a glitch buster (plus increased voltage) so... hopefully when I instal the external BEC, my problems are resolved. Will keep you all updated. Thanks

a BEC and a glitch buster are not the same thing. I have the same servo and it wasn’t worth a crap on lower voltage ESC. Had to bump to a Max6 to get 7.4
 
Not sure why people use Savox for the 6S line, there are better options available.
If you need a servo and a BEC you are doing something wrong, if this is on a basher.

That is my opinion, spend your money as you like ;)
 
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