$3.99 Metal Gear Servos

erco

9/23 Edit: Changed title from $4.58 Servos to $3.99 Servos due to price drop, same servo from same seller

I used two in a project and they worked fine, sturdy and gobs of torque: http://www.ebay.com/itm/201606181242. Can't vouch for long term reliability, but I ordered several more for non mission critical apps. It's a tenth of the price of a MG servo at a hobby shop. The sticker says MG996, but before you order you should read this sad review of the MG995 servo: http://www.rcmodelreviews.com/mg995review.shtml

Anybody else here a gamblin' man?

MikeDYur

Don't know why the author spent so much money on something untested and from ebay. My robot uses this for steering, and I have given it some abuse. There from Pololu and the price is the same. $20.00


https://www.pololu.com/product/1057

erco

Turns out I have purchased these from several different sellers, and I didn't mark which was which. I took two from different groups apart. Neither was ball bearing. One had a pretty beefy brass bushing pressed into the servo case, one had a loose nylon bushing that easily came out of the case. Both have nice gears, but proceed with caution.

Duane Degn

Here's a photo of bushings in one of the "MG996R" servos I purchased.



There are some additional photos in this post.

I had originally hoped to use these servos in my hexapod but the servos got very hot with mild use and I have yet to find an application suitable for these pieces of junk servos.

IMO, it's worth the extra cost to get servos from HobbyKing. I'm using their HXT12K servo in my hexapod and I think they work great.

Did the "MG596" servos you purchased get hot with use?

erco

My lightly loaded hexapod was not run long enough to notice if the two servos got hot (yes, a 2-servo hexapod). Servos and electronics powered by 4x AA batteries, so not a heavy duty application. But the client was wowed enough to ask for a second model. A good week.

User Name

Those were great pictures, Duane. I have a few MG996R servos but have never taken one apart. I use them to activate valves remotely, so the servos are powered up just long enough to achieve the desired flow rate and then powered down. For that sort of use they're great. Ambulatory robots - totally different.

erco

The price dropped to $3.99, free ship, so I ordered 4 more.

I gutted one marked MG995 last night, yeah the world's worst servo. I needed a strong gearmotor (can't say why but I'm having a ball and getting paid well) so I just plucked out the gizzards. Easy disassembly, and this one (they vary) was 100% metal gears with ball bearings. Pot pushed right out, it wasn't needed to support the output shaft, and the mechanical stop was a small steel pin that pulled easily out of the big brass output gear. Easy peezy.

For $4, it would be hard to find a stronger or smaller gearmotor. But as Duane showed, innards vary, even between servos with the same number, so caveat servus emptor!