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Servo fitting and horns


Dove from above
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I have never had to work out where to fit servos in a model before.

I need to fit 2 servos close together for rud and ele. The fuse is fairly narrow so tight to work in.

I want to try and get the placement right first go and I can see the only reason I would get this wrong would be getting the servo horn landing at a good distance to allow some adjustment of holes inward and outwards.

So what I am trying to say badly is, if I get the linkage rod sitting in the correct position should I be looking at getting the middle of horn for connection BUT saying that what length of horn is correct??? that's hard to say I know.

for instance I just pick up aileron and rudder horns from my LHS ,i got these because they looked "about" the right size and the shop only had them or 1/4 scale looking one! I just thought i would start in the centre hole and adjust if needed. Woud i do the same with the servo horn. Use what came with the servo and aim for centre hole?

Cor, sorry for the rambling,hard to describe that.

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You must always start with the outer horn in the servo and control surface. The further out you go the less the play in the servo gears will be amplified and any slop in the holes (there should be none anyway). If you are new to this you can use a Z bend and a kwik link but make sure that each end is free but with no slop. I do not generally use kwik links any more and favour ball links which with a little fettling will give a firm but slop free linkage. Some soldering skills may be required here to get a proper 2mm thread on each end of the rod.

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About 3/4" to 1" out from the centre screw is a good starting point for many models. Surface throw can usually be adjusted later on the Tx. but it is always best to set it up mechanically as close as possible to that recommended for the design. Use a ruler to measure the linear travel of the servo on a particular hole and compare this with similar on the control surface. Difficult to describe without a picture of your servos/model.

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I have to disagree Andrew. Some gliders use that method to keep the dangley bits as close in as possible so as not to interfere with the airstream. 0.1mm of slop in the gears or linkage is 2% of total at 5mm radius. At 20mm this becomes only 0.5%. You just use longer control surface horns to compensate.

100mm rudder servo pull-pull horns are commonplace on 3D models, with correspondingly long rudder horns.

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Sorry Andrew, but you still have this wrong. Let us say that the servo is 100% accurate and the play is only in the linkage which is what the OP is not familiar with. My argument is now obviously valid.

I am just completing one of those awful DWH Storches. A guy doing a video on the build tried it as supplied and soon found out that a very short moment arm on the surface horns gave about 30% play in the movement. I tried it and he was correct, resulting in much longer horns being required all round. I used to fly F3A in the 70`s and in those days we did not have the advantages of the equipment now available and linkages were of paramount importance to get accuracy, so as a former British champion and twice team member in that in that discipline I believe that I know what I am talking about.

No hard feelings I hope since everyone on this forum no doubt have their own views.

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What you actually want to achieve is the required control surface movement using as much as the servo rotation as possible and move the control connection in/out to achieve this. What you don't want to do is find that you are reducing the end points/rates on the transmitter by a large amount to make the control surface move the required distance.

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