I used to sort of ignore this and just buy the cheap batches of 9G servos on eBay. Well, today I received an oder for a few of Tam Valley's switch machines, witht he microswitches attached. I got the fully assmebled ones with servo and microswitch, figuring to have a few examples and then just oder the bare mounts, the Digi-Key part number for the microswitch is provided and they are like $1 each in quantity, and use my own servos.
I plugged on in to my servo controller, and it is nearly completely silent, quietrer than a Tortoise or anything else I ever used. Unpolugged it and plugged in one of my generic eBay servos - whiiirrr - zip - zip. Not quiet. I had been planning to tweak my code a bit to make them quieter - but it's not my code. It's the cheapo knockoff servos.
The genuine Tower Pro servos have the Tower Pro name on the label. Others are just blank, or have some other name. It appears that genuine Tower Pro is always the orange/red/brown wire color instead of the black/red/white wires.
There is a difference. But I've seen knockoffs for as low as 99 cents, best price on the real thing I can find is $2.49 each. After work I will make a quick video so you cna hear the difference. It's not a tiny thing, it's very much a better product.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Yea, sometimes you get what you pay for; sometimes not. I'll look forward to viewing the video, Randy - i.e. whenever you are able to post it.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I have more than 50 turnouts in place with no motors installed yet. I'll be using servos and due to the quantity, wanting to do it at a reasonable cost. What you post on here about your experience is going to be extremely valuable in my efforts. Thanks.
Deane
Randy.
My other hobby of RC helicopters and quads there are miles of difference in the servo market. The servos you put in your beater heli cost peanuts to the scale turboshaft helicopter. My practice 450 I can crash and spend about $75 to completely rebuild. The scale bird has servos that cost hundreds of dollars each. I did find that Emax makes a fantastic micro servo for under $5 when bought in quantity and shipping on the slow boat. ES09MD metal gear digital with 9 grams of pulling power. Not a bad little servo for the money.
As for being quiet. There is several things you can do to quiet a noisy servo. Inherintly metal gear servos are quieter than plastic geared ones. Greasing the metal gears is a start. Frequency tweaking of the driver helps, but adjusting the end points is paramount to servo life. Once the point is against the stock rail the power to the motor should be off. This will keep the buzz away and not burn up the motor. To get a fast servo to slow down is to vary the voltage. The flight controller in the heli does that. Most can change the frequency to optimize the smoothness and the motor control.
Happy railroading.
Pete.
They're not buzzing because they are trying to go too far. It's all gear noise. The real Tower Pro ones, while still plastic gears, are very quiet, the generic Chinesium ones are not. Plus I cut power at end of travel, the linkage has enough spring over center to hold with the servo powered off.
The linear servos like in my park flyer would actually work well for turnouts, although they would need a slightly different linkage.
I really want to take the guts out of the el cheapo plane I have and stuick it on a Guillow balsa plane - it's one of those foam planes with 2 small motors and steering by adjusting the motor speed, no real rudder.
So here's the video. You can definitely hear the difference. Plus I showed off my board a little.
Yep, totally silent. And, you're right, the Tower Pros are worth the extra price because in absolute terms the added cost is not all that much.
Rich
Alton Junction
I guess I lucked out, I bought two pacakages of 10 Tower 9g servos off eBay for $14.90 about ayear ago and like Randy said no noticeable gear noise.I also bought a 10 pack of 3.7g servos (smaller than the 9g), they arn't Tower but no noticeable gear noise. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
Okay, you have me interested. I have a semi-hidden staging. You can see it from the other side of the layout but not from where most of the action is. And it would be nice to push a button to access a certain staged train on one of the tracks with the push of a button. LED lights would be a plus so I can know which tracks are open so I can run on the main.
Any good resource in how to set something like this up? Buying servos and mounts are a given. I don't think I need any fancy electronics.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Servos need electronics to run them. You can get the whole works built up from Tam Valley and some others - I used ther Tam Valley stuff on my last layout (you may have missed that one). Nice thing with servos is, all the wiring plugs in - if it's not long enough, you just get extension cords rather than splice in your own wire (which you could do).