Yes Roy. Saving those servos is a great idea. The ones I mentioned have a built in direction and speed controller. They work out great for powering a small boat. I removed the gear between the output shaft going to the potentiometer. Fwd, stop, rev (with speed control) all built into a single unit.

If using a servo to operate something like a radar bar, the pot can be used to tweak the speed.

I also use a servo to operate a dpdt center off switch that operates a linear movement with stop switches.

Lew

Hi all, I never throw out servos, just strip out the motors as they are good quality, and/or the gear box. With a bit of cutting of plastic gives a low speed continuous drive gearbox for driving a radar unit powered by a single dry cell.
Rotary connection can be with a fine piece length of piano wire which hardly shows.

Older servos can be updated with a change of connection lead. Servo lead extension wires are very cheap and with a bit of checking and identifing old servo leads connection. On all rx's that take current standard servo leads the negative is toward outside of the rx case, next and central is the plus or positive wire and innermost is the signal wire.
Sanwa have the plus and minus swapped and also Fleet but they went further by also changing the shape of the connector, which in my opinion was just to be awkward.
I would cut off the old type connector and cut the extension in half and join the wires as appropriate. Ideally use heat shrink tubing to insulate the soldered joint.

Catching up to servos on sale now which in general are more powerful. The small 9 gram servo at around £1.50 each if sourced on the Internet gives half a kilo thrust at 1cm and can operate most rudders on displacement boats on a 750cm hull.

For sail winches I use standard metal gear servos with an extension arms. The old sail servos apart from a double drum winch which is still in use at 60 years old(!) is a good one.

I had a Fleet sail winch bought new which never worked properly despite the owner of Fleet actually blaming the traffic on the road outside and refusing to do anything about it. Also the 27Mhtz short aerial gave ultra short range as well. The Fleet pre-proportional sets were very good so a bit mixed about them as a manufacturer.

The Futaba receivers with lots of coils to set up were too much of a problem but the transmitters were super. Matched with a Micron receiver they were excellent, that was a kit to build yourself and worked every time. I made 3 of them.

I suspect that most receivers were really for aircraft and receivers with an electric motor drive had not been taken into account. The old esc's had a large voltage drop 1.4 volts in some cases and the motor drive current had to go through the 2 o/p transistors which means 10 amps at 1.4 volts is 14 Watts of power lost to the motors but dissipated across the o/p transistors as heat and needed a big heat sink.

So I do not use these as I can get a 10 amp esc with no heat sink the size of a postage stamp for the price of a servo. The good bit is that everything seems to work together a triumph of all working from the same specs. There are some very small anomolies in servo neutral positions regarding the mark/space ratio of the servo position which could have a 500 microsecond difference.
That is why transmitter servo neutral may differ between servos which will need a small adjustment.

The transmitted frequency will vary in different countries but virtually all 40Mhtz in the UK came in as 35 Mhtz sets and have a 40 mHtz inserted. Witness my Fleet Plainsman (40 Mhtz) Tx. has a 35 Mhtz label on the base.

There is something to check with old electronic RC which is 'black wire syndrome'. I had a transmitter which was a problem, eventually I found the negative wire from the battery pack after stripping back the insulation, was all black. It was basically open circuit.

I replaced the wire and then found another and now it works without problem. I am guessing that it is a soldered joint that starts the black wire problem. Most commercial batteries are welded and I have not seen a problem with them.
I would welcome opinion on this.
Roy

First radio was a Heathkit 4 channel system (1972). Had to assemble it including all the components, some standing on end to conserve space. No IC's. The radio is packed away somewhere, but the servos are the drive motors with a built in speed controller curcuit. They are in my 1/35 scale LCM 53 years later.

Lew

As I recall our first radio was a McGregor unit but I don't believe it was proportional. Single channel as well. I remember the advert "Wee McGregor is in control" Early '70's when my father was stationed at RAF Woodbridge.😊

The capacitor can be thrown out as it does not belong.
Looks a little sad but a good clean will improve it no end. I think the 'Standard' is the best of Taycol motors, enjoy it!
Roy

Taycol Standard?

I have just received my first Taycol motor, that I purchased on eBay for the princely sum of £18.94 including post and pack.

Unfortunately it was delivered by EVRI - a courier that does not have a very good record or reputation in this area.

The package was late arriving and so it arrived when I was away, and in true local EVRI fashion it was dumped on the doorstep in the pouring rain and left there unattended over the weekend!

Our local postman found it this morning and put it in the shed for us (the designated "safe place" that EVRI should have used) with a note to let us know that he had placed it into safe keeping for us but that it was already soaking wet! Very kind of him as he has nothing to do with EVRI ......and I wish I didn't either !

If it had been sent by GPO it would have got here much faster and been given a lot more care - it would not have been dumped on a wet doorstep and left unattended !

Anyway, the seller did pack it well and as I cut away the Gaffa Tape wrapping that totally mummified it, the water run out and the soggy corrugated card that was wrapped around it was gently scraped away with my thumbnail.

I believe that the motor is a Taycol Standard?

I am not into electronics, but I guess that the cracked cylinder on the front of the motor was a type of "capacitor" that had been fitted to try to prevent interference from the motor affecting some other electronic device - such as a radio control receiver?

Because the grey coloured "cracked cylinder" clearly looks like it is "past its best", I doubt that removing it is likely to have any adverse affect?

The motor will be allowed to dry-out gently and the "capacitor" will be removed before I strip and clean the motor to tidy it up before adding any power to see it if actually runs.

Bob.

Meccano/Mamod one. I've not seen the Meccano vertical boiler.

Hi are you talking about the Meccano/Mamod steam engine? Or the old vertical Meccano one?
Roy

It is interesting to see these older models when they come round. I always look out for them on displays at the fairs, not that I am in the market to buy just interested. Although I am occasionally offered things like the Meccano steam boiler a friend passed on to me earlier this year.

Hi Colin it is a 3 pole motor and runs very smoothly from a few revs to full speed. This one was from an Indian Meccano type constuction set called Mek-a-Tek.

Their are no more, a friend bought a job lot of 50 on ebay and I had the last ones.
Roy