Melted Steering Servo

Pacochu

New Member
Messages
3
My six year old bought an AMP DB two weeks ago with his own chore/holiday/birthday money. Running it around today and it appears the steering servo got too hot somehow. The bottom of the case is melted and a thin plume of white smoke was visible. He was just running around the street when it stopped steering in one direction. It's in the 90s here, but that shouldn't be too hot to run. It's box stock.

Is it better to just buy an upgraded servo and the RPM steering kit and be done with it, or do I go to my LHS and see what they'll do? The stock servo is ripe for an upgrade anyways, but the thing is only two weeks ond.
 
Definitely upgrade the servo and get the rpm bell crank kit. Sadly a lot hobby shop employees are less than experts and probably won’t make a choice you’d like.
 
Had this happen to AMP MT last Thursday. Got a replacement servo, better one with metal gears and whatnot but turns out ESC steering circuit also was hit. Probably not possible to find out which one caused this. Anyway now ESC when switched on gets a bit hot and when i opened it there is an odd hole in the stuff the circuitboard is covered in, right under the middle part of heatsink.
Maybe some solar magnetic storm? Since another RC car from another maker had its ESC burn up, this time it was the main motor part.
 
Same, AMP MT stock ECX13010 ESC, SPEKTRUM S607 replaced with a SAVOX SW-0230MG.

Servo housing was melted a little, looks like one of the MOSFETS burned out. Bought a fancy new servo, plugged it in, and it never initialized, doesn't actuate at all. Throttle still works fine, forward and reverse. Hit the servo leads (open circuit) with a DMM and got Vred-to-black 3.5-3.6V, Vwhite-to-black 2.5V (neutral) and 1.5-3.5V (range of steering). Vbatt is 7.2V nominal, 8.0V actual (open circuit), NiMH. My understanding is that the integrated BEC should be pushing more like 6V. Could this be a fried BEC/receiver, or a bunk new servo, or both? Unfortunately I can't easily test the new servo AFAIK.

Thanks in advance!
0616201036.jpg
 
A long overdue update. I took it into the LHS and bought an Onyx S45 MG servo. The guy took out the old one and installed the new one and made sure it was aligned correctly. The boy is still loving the car.
 
Same, AMP MT stock ECX13010 ESC, SPEKTRUM S607 replaced with a SAVOX SW-0230MG.

Servo housing was melted a little, looks like one of the MOSFETS burned out. Bought a fancy new servo, plugged it in, and it never initialized, doesn't actuate at all. Throttle still works fine, forward and reverse. Hit the servo leads (open circuit) with a DMM and got Vred-to-black 3.5-3.6V, Vwhite-to-black 2.5V (neutral) and 1.5-3.5V (range of steering). Vbatt is 7.2V nominal, 8.0V actual (open circuit), NiMH. My understanding is that the integrated BEC should be pushing more like 6V. Could this be a fried BEC/receiver, or a bunk new servo, or both? Unfortunately I can't easily test the new servo AFAIK.

Thanks in advance!
View attachment 6183

Yep that's whats happened to mine. I opened the ECX13010 ESC and i could see under heatsink a little recess around one of the component in the clear stuff covering PCB. The component was little lower than others which leads me to think it did not get good enough cooling and messed up the servo or vice versa. I sent both servo and ESC to warranty but since im in Europe and it should reach US it might take long time. Also bought another ECX13010 ESC and a better servo. Havent opened ESC up yet to see if it looks similar.
 
Hi guys, im new to this forum. My son has amp mt too and now this stock servo melted too and little smoke did come there too. I think that i could buy better servo to replace it, can you guys recommend me any places buy these. I live in Finland so its fine for me to order it over the seas too.
 
Banggood.com KS-3518. Cheap, fast and powerful. Links in my signature.

You will need to turn down your steering dual rate very low and then slowly turn it up and watch your steering linkage and arms. That servo is so strong it will literally rip the steering apart if you have it set to push or pull beyond the limits of the steering. It's strong and fast but you need to set the dual rate so that it doesn't try to push the steering farther than it can go.

The bigger problem is the servo saver. I ordered the RPM plastic eliminator to try to get it to reliably center properly. The servo will steer the car quickly but I have enough slop in the steering that I can't get it to reliably center.

Hmmm. I am going to measure the toe on the front. Maybe it's time to order some adjustable metal turnbuckles so I can set it up the way I want. I already did that with the rear camber links and it's MUCH better with 1-2 degrees negative camber in the rear.
 
This happen to me literally today rn trying to figure out what to do thxx
 

Latest posts

Members online

Back
Top