MG995 servo review
 

So I bought two of the above listed servos, after Sike had good results. Got them off ebay, 25 bucks for 2 shipped!

Put one in my hyper7 buggy. It is powered by a chinese bec, (got it from united hobbies not sure of the brand, cost $5) set at 6v. Radio gear is a jr synth tx and rx.

This servo works really well in the buggy, plenty of power, even turning on high traction surfaces during hard braking. Seems to be about the perfect speed, quick, but not too fast to be twitchy at speed.

According to the spec it has a .13 transit time and 15 kg/cm of torque. That is right at 200 oz/in. Those are the 6v ratings and I do not think that they are over-exaggerated either.

Considering I paid less that 14 bucks per servo I think that they are a great deal. Even as a brake servo or steering on a 10th scale vehicle, they are just too cheap to pass up. I have about 45 mins on this servo and have not had any issues, glitching, hanging up, etc. I plan to run it till it breaks, but will pick up some more for my other projects.

This servo was a hit about year ago here however it ended up its just piece of junk. The specs that most resellers have on their sites are wrong. Servo has 11kg and 0.16 if I remember correctly at 6V.

My servo worked ok for about a month that it started to act crazy around neutral. Friends nitro Savage did run me over as his servo went nuts.

I have seen the specs vary from seller to seller. Seems like a decent servo, but we shall see if it lasts. A couple of people on here have purchased a few recently, so we will see how they do. I hope it lasts, as most of my cars are bashers and putting a 70-120 dollar servo in each gets pricey!

I have had the TowerPro MG995 for a while. I bought it at the LHS as thier prices for the 645mg were steep and I needed a steering servo. What I read about these servos is that they are a good strong servo but they have centring issues. I have found this to be the case. I thought I would explain but decided instead why not make a video. The second video the servo behaved better but still not perfectly. what the videos don't show is the servo over shoots which is what causes the centring issue. This means the steering doesn't feel as precise as a more expensive digital servo.

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/MTBik...74691387312242
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/MTBik...79252642580610

As you can see in the videos mine is a little weird. It didn't start off that bad but has got progressively worse over time but it does still work and still has a bit of power. It is nothing though compared to the 5955tg in the video but that should be expected as it's about an 1/8th of the price.

I have a pair of these in my E maxx. I couldn't be happier with them. IMO, they are much more suitable for this application than the "waterproof" 2056's that it came with. Stock Servo's were 160oz of torque, this setup is 400oz.

They are very strong, not too fast, not too slow. I have not encountered any centering issues. Since they are paired to the same linkage, and operating under some drag at all times, perhaps this prevents that centering issue.

I drove my Revo which has a pair of 2055's in it. There's no comparison. It was then, that I went back and ordered 2 more pairs of these.

The stock 2056's that came with my E maxx didn't last. The gears stripped. Yeah I was being hard on them by jumping and doing cartwheels. LOL

The price of these 995's and the fact they have metal gears got me interested. They must be tougher. We'll see how they hold up, but so far I'm very pleased. :yes:

cool video, thats exactly how my servo behaved (closer to 2nd video). it was very hard to go straight at maximum speed. it was ok for bashing but useless for racing

as far as cheaps servos go I think that BlueBird servos are the way to go. I am just testing one in my Mini Quake and it seems ok.

I got 2 of them in my e-lst2, one of them was in an e-maxx before. They work pretty well.
hobbycity.com sells upgraded and/or sped up versions of this servo, I don't have any experience with them, though..

I didn't have such good luck with them. One of them was the steering servo in my Savage, and after a while it REALLY slowed down (like .5sec transit time). The other was in my 2.2 rock crawler, and one of its gears stripped. Now I won't buy anything less than quality, IE Hitec 5955TG in my crawler, no new servo (yet) in my Savage, and my other vehicles use Airtronics 359 and 357 servos.

Sounds like the quality is all over the place, but what can you expect for 14 bucks! I bought two more from another seller, 10 bucks each with shipping. We will see how they do. I will use them as brake servos, I think.

from what I have heard there are supposed to be at least two version of 995 servo. one being somehow ok, the other junk

No luck with them for me either. I ordered them for a buggy project but used 2 of them in my 11lb truggy. Each of them lasted no longer than 20 runs.

http://www.braintrust.at/2007/ds/rc/mg995.jpg

The red arrows shows where the failure started. On the first one 2 gears came apart. And on the second one 2 gears stripped.

Aside of the failure they are a bit slow, seem to be lacking power for Truggys or Mts. Mine also got slower with time and did show the same centering problem.

I would not recommend them in truggys or MTs when used for heavy bashing. When used on a track they might hold up longer. In my buggy they had enough power (still a bit on the slow side) and would have survived longer.

I will now try a Hitec HS-5985MG which features a case top with two brass axial bushing. A Hitec 5955TG might be a better choice though.

I've had very good luck with them. I agree that they don't have the most precise centering in the world so they're not good for serious racing, but for the price they're flippin' amazing IMO. I've been using two for a while now with no problems at all.

They might be good servos, but i say u git wut u pay for. I paid $114 for my JR Z9000T Digital servo, which is metal geared and puts out 320oz/in. of torque and has a transit time of something like 0.12 . I use one to steer my BL-Revo (only 1) with great results. Bashing and racing with it for 3 years, no problems. And trust me i run that truck hard!

I also bought 2 of them one kind of went bad. It tunrs good but it returns to cente really slow. The other is still working good in my truggy.

They certainly are pretty terrible servos. I bought a pack of 6 of them a few months ago just to see what they were like cause they were only 50 bucks :D.

Of them all, only 2 survive to this day.

They start off ok, they have decent torque and really fast transit. They're a little twitchy to begin with, and they don't hold position real well, but for such a cheap servo I was willing to let that slide.

The biggest problem with them was when I tried to use one as a throttle/brake servo on my new Hyper ST as the stock servo died in about 20 min.

I had to give just over 1mm play on the accelerator side of the linkage, if that makes any sense, because of how crap the centering on these servos are.
What would happen is, when I applied brake, and then let the trigger on the TX center, the servo would re center by going PAST neutral, giving a little blip on the throttle as it went to that side, then going back to neutral. This got really irritating at the track as every time I braked for a corner, I got a little burst of speed when cornering instead of being able to roll around the corner.

All of them were terrible as throttle/brake servos but ok as steering, but as they died, they got slower and slower. I used one as a single steering servo in my Revo, another 2 in my Hyper ST (steering and throttle/brake), another as throttle/brake in my Baja and the last 2 I gave to a mate who ran one as steering in his 8ight-T and the other in his Baja as throttle/brake.

The only 2 that still survive are the ones in the Baja's and that's only because they get run maybe once every 2 months as there isn't anywhere we can take them :(.

All the ones that were doing steering seized up. Totally frozen, couldn't even turn em with pliers. The ones as throttle/brake were really worrying as they just got slower and slower until they just stopped working. I got lucky, I noticed mine was dead right after a race. I'm just glad it didn't stop with WOT.

I wouldn't trust them to a throttle/brake servo for exactly that reason. If they get stuck at WOT even a throttle return spring wouldn't be able to close the throttle as they're really tough little servos. I don't mind it as the throttle servo in my Baja as I have a remote kill switch. No such luxuary on a 1/8 nitro.

I'm running HS-5955TGs for steering in most of my 1/8s now which are miles better.

Anyway, just my 2c. They're ok servos, but you definitely get what you pay for. Just spend the extra and get a quality servo first off :D