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

re food in Australian hospitals, Central Coast. As a UK resident I can confirm it is truly awful! Safe things after a 10 day stay were Tomato soup, a sandwiche, most items that are pre packaged. The cooked meals were an insult to the art of cooking. Usual breakfast items OK. Distribution was very casual and rather random. I was given other peoples choices several times.
I stayed in Gosford hospital for most of the time. The staff and doctors were excellent but in general you could be left for hours wndering what is happening. I also had a short stay in Shoalhaven hospital. A really nice friendly hospital.

For UK residents who visit Australia, there is a reciprocal agreement between Medicare and the NHS. The system is quick to use and I had a robot guided operation within the hour almost of the decision to operate.

I had an ambulance drive to my local hospital in Watford and the system worked 10 out of 10 for me. Unexpectadely the food was not bad either! I had an assistant nurse assigned to me and she let me know every hour what was happening.
Having been in an ambulance the ride was rough and the suspension rudimentary on our local roads.

I am off to Oz again in March 2026 so fingers crossed.

Roy

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

Could you be more specific in what you want?
Roy

I think that with esc's connected the inertia of the motors will eliminate the 'notches'.

Roy

Hi yes, what you are dealing with is 2 esc's each set to supply the current used to run the receiver. Inevitably the voltage each esc is supplying is not the same and you only need one of them to do the job.

The best way to do it is to use an extension servo lead and cut the red lead in the wire. Plug one end of the extension lead into the receiver and the other end into either esc.

That way the esc's remain intact.
Roy

Hi ColinJ2, the mixer you have there from AliExpress is marked brushless. BUT it is not just brushless it will drive a brushed esc just as well.
The mixing is done before the esc is involved. It is possible the mixing has taken brushless operation into account.

Has anyone used one?

Roy

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

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

Hi Bob, re bearings.
In my collection of motors I have 2 similar motors to old Taycol and Trix. Where they came from not sure maybe India but I have seen one which was in a boat made in UK in 1948.
They have a vertical magnet and the end plates of thin aluminium are held apart by aluminium tubes, it is very crude.

I put in a bearing very simple, just close fitting brass tube and an outer tube for strength.
I disembled the motor and used a tapered reamer to slowly open the hole to be a push fit for brass tube bearing. I also soldered on a backing brass washer for appearances sake. They have worked very well. I superglued them in place.

The motor is surprisingly powerful for such a crude design.

Roy

Hi Bob, my 'Standard' has what look like bearings, large black plastic ones.

I think it is the combination of copper on copper that is the problem and the oil adds to the lovely smell!

I had a re-count on boxes of motors it is now 10.
Roy

Hi pat, I think I knew this answer as I find corals fascinating. Apart from the way they are shown on TV, I have been lucky enough to see them first hand.

I went to a hotel at Sharm al Sheik boasting corals, there were none there, there had been many members of a certain unpopular country. Totally undisciplined just breaking off corals as trophies. I watched it happen the poor leader of the group went spare.

Later some years later I had the good fortune to swim over the Great Barrier Reef in 3 different areas. I do not scuba dive but like snorkelling.

The reefs have so many fish around them. A year or so later I was in Thailand and then Phuket and on a dive boat for a week on the Andaman Sea. Swimming among fish for a week it was great.
The water was warm, extremely so. The fish swim at several levels e.g. I had one lot around my head another set at my waist and bigger ones below. Hundreds of them.

The dive boat was an extended fishing boat. There were just cabins for 14 and they had a crew of 12. The Captain answered my questions, he had seen the boat on the stocks, it was a speculative build.
He found a couple of investors and they agreed to have the boat extended, basically sawn in half and lengthened. So the hold was the passenger area. Never saw a fish!
We got on with our bags from a dinghy and then into the cabins a pair of bunk beds and small shower/toilet for each cabin. It was personal service from waking up for breakfast throughout the day.
I did say to the Captain that the dead eyes were not the right way up though!

The area where the fish are and diving occurs is a National Park and we were boarded by the patrols and individually charged much dearer for diving I got away lightly as I was snorkelling. See attached photo.
Roy

The thing is that the unexpected theory of the longest answer is correct, seems to be right.

We must hope that this hypothesis does not get to the likes of the A.I. question master.
Roy

Hi Z, I have never thought of replacing the brushes. I only keep the motors as a collector would.

I think you could try a set of round section carbon brushes, mount them in a brass tube with a spring under compression to keep them against the commutator. Might have to drill holes in the sides as there is not much room.
Roy

Have you thought of featuring the Taycol motor in the model but having another motor driving it through the other end of the shaft?

It could easily be hidden but driving the Taycol motor. So no interference from power to the brushes.

You can hide things by matching colours and painting unwanted things "out".

Roy

Hi Z, the remark about the optimal placing of the coil giving a different speed, I do not think this is correct.
Other smaller Taycol motors with a reverse coil have a smaller winding for reverse.

Note that a lot of the fibre support plates are all much the same size and the Standard has double plates rather than a thicker plate.

I read many years ago when they were on sale that there are red and blue painted motors to denote different voltages. Mainly 6 volts and 12 volts. I can't prove that though.

I sometimes have a Taycol hour and get them all out to play!
Roy

The Standard seems to run unevenly but good torque. The Double special is only about 60 or so watts and weighs rather a lot.
A pity we do not have You (smelly) tube then you would get the full effect!
Roy

Hi all. Has anyone found any bargains?

Hobbycraft (UK) have half price offers on Green cutting mats most sizes. A few tools and knife sets.

Roy

Hi Zooma, just search Taycol electric motors. The one at £40 is over priced. What with them being heavy postage is a bit high.
The Standard is the powerful one of the smaller ones.
The permanent magnet ones will have lost a lot of the power of the magnet, due to time. Using additional small extremely powerful magnet like neodimium may help.

It works for the Trix electric motor enough to make the motor reverse while running.

If you look on web site "Dodgey Geezer" you can learn all you need to know. Although improved now, I worked out the way to reverse them using a full wave rectifier. There are pictures of a 1 : 4 gear reduction unit that is a photo of my one.

They are a bit fussy with radio, I think with 2.4 Ghtz and a switch or mechanical controller they may work. They generate a lot of interference with the sparking on the commutator, but always worth a try.
Roy

Hi Oxford D If you look at your score before you answer the QoD you will see you have one unanswered question and your score was recuced to 77%. Get it right and you get 80%.
Roy

There always seem to be Taycol motors on sale on ebay. Currently there are a pair of Comet motors in tatty boxes. There were the first of the Taycols but had permanent magnets in them.
I have one in my collection and still working and even has that lovely smell of electricity oil.
Roy

I have some still working DEAC batteries. I bought them new when we used to have Government surplus shops.
Anybody remember working through all the bits and pieces piled high and sold cheap?

I used to look for electric motors, often cheap, but ex-aircraft were often 24 volts, but excellent quality.
My first speed controller, well not exactly controller. It was sequencer which had 2 latching relays slow, fast, reverse, slow, forward. It was adapted from data processing equipment.

There were two coils on each relay and I had to rewind both coils on 2 relays, they latched and unlatched 4 contacts.
One relay dealt with direction the other switched dry batteries from parallel to series connection then back.

There was a simple bit of electronics that pulsed both coils each time but only one had work to do. I was amazed at how reliable it was.
Still got the relays and the Kako 4 motor.
Roy

I think this comment was what we were refering to.
Roy

Hi Andy lovely job. I especially like that laminated gaff spar.

Doug I echo what you said about Nerys, she 'liked' one of my posts once, it made my day!
Roy

I virtually stopped using another similar forum as the alerted contents was so often "I agree" with no real offering or constructive information.
Even things like "I got it wrong again" on QoD score 2 points.
It is a bit like being the Captain's "yes man" and gaining promotion.

I like ranks as a bit of fun but as in life sometimes your boss can be a corporate idiot! Seen it twice at work where talk outshone common sense.
In one case a salesman did well in the company his briefings were greeted with all eyes on him.
Management thought this was good presentation technique and he was promoted.

The reality was he had a very large wig and we were all wondering if the next time he turned round his wig would stay facing us!

As with many members I have done a lot of other things not as an expert but in so doing picked up useful knowledge.

There are some very good threads running and I am still learning so please keep this up, for me the rest gets deleted.

e.g. I was not aware how much the keel on a fast boat affected the performance. But I do now!

Roy

Hi Doug, I collect old electric motors mainly those intended for model use. I have 7 biscuit tins full but the odd part is I have to search for ages to find a motor for a new boat.

I like restoring older model boats and also like fitting a contemporary motor to them. I bought a Mary Ann fishing boat with a 540 motor fitted. I can't imagine how fast she went. I did a refit and put in a Monoperm motor.

I attended a Garage sale about 20+ years ago and looked around and not much took my eye.
Then someone I hardly knew called out my name and said we have been saving the electric motors for you

He brought out a box of motors, about half the size of a banana box, I asked how much for the lot? He said can I manage £40? yes I could! I sold a couple which paid for the buy. I still have a lot left which I use in my boats.

I sometimes feel guilty about the purchase but then forgive myself by using the motors as they were intended.

Roy

Hi Doug I think I would not like to know.
I teach Bridge play and I would prefer not to see another person's hand as it would spoil the game for me.

I like to add logic to knowledge and really only challenge myself.

Roy