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Are RC toys a good source for servos/motors?

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By Keepvogel

December 6, 2008

I was wondering whether RC toys are a good source for components. I came across a RC plane with two motors and two servos that only costs €25. This seems like a very good deal to me, or would this be a bad idea?

What are your experiences with demolishing toys for the greater good, or do you have an alternative cheap source of components?

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By voodoobot
@ Thu, 2009-01-15 22:07
voodoobot's picture

Rc toys are great sources. The last couple of rc planes I had...after they met their demise....had some nice components.

One had a nice 3 channel rc radio(72mhz band) 2 micro servos, and a speed controller. I have 2 extra battery packs for this plane I think they are 3.6v nimh...though they might be higher.  The motor wasn't useful after the last crash due to the bent shaft. Other parts were useful as well, like the mechanical rudder and elevator control components. 

I have a micro heli that I want to take apart as it has a couple of nice components, 2 super micro motors plus the battery pack and charging setup are pretty sweet as well. 

The current project i have has contributed  some nice components as well...nice little micro vid camera that i was able to desolder and rebuild  

By Inopia
@ Thu, 2009-01-15 21:24

I bought an r/c tank from dealextreme, made it into this robot: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-2DFMid78o&feature=channel_page

it gets stuck at the end of the video, but I've since tweaked the code a bit and it works flawlessly now. The controller board is an atmega128 board from futurlec, running a Java VM. 

 The biggest issue was that the battery lasts only 15 minutes or so. The tracks and gears are great actually, it's very fast (we use PWM to throttle the motors, it's not running full-speed in the video) and very light.

By OddBot
@ Sun, 2008-12-07 00:39
OddBot's picture
If you can get the toy cheap enough and it has what you want, go for it. Toys can be a good source of parts. I pulled apart one of those dinosaur robots for the 5 gearboxes it had inside. I hadn't bought it to pull apart but had lost interest in it. Even though it was nearly half price I could have got simillar motor/gearboxes cheaper on the net. I'm planning on using it's IR remote to control my own robots. I'm on the lookout for a decent toy tank or 6 wheel drive to use for an off road robot.