Size of sail servo?

Rcsailing.net New Boat Owners
1

How do I determine the size/strength of sail servo that I will need:

  1. With mainsail and jib on same servo
  2. With mainsail and jib on seperate servos

???
Cobus

2

Before we can help you, we need to know the size of the boat you have.
Square inches of sail material is what determines the size of your sail winch servo.
You can never go to big or powerfull. As long as you have space in the hull for the servo and batteries, a larger one is fine.
A small boat with a few hundred inches of sail are can be run on a standard servo. A larger boat with 6-800 inches of sail will need a larger servo like the Hitec 815 or 715 if you want a drum.

Peter R.
www.climatemodels.com

Visit www.climatemodels.com

3

Cobus,

Your going to need a good sized servo as Roy recommended on Windpower. I would also like to include my favorite, the futaba 5801 drum winch. Now for you and this particular boat, since you just want to get out there and sail it and not race, I would really recommend the Hitec drum winch. http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXN607&P=7
Some of the Wheeler guys even use these. I’m not a fan, but that’s only because they are slow. But unless someone here knows better, I would say that this may be you best bet for the $$.

Oh yea, I would also agree with Roy to stick with a single winch for both sails.

4

i use a hitec 5801 drum winch on my IOMs. and it works just fine. i also have a IOM hooked to a standard sail winch arm. and that works just fine. listen to peter. i trust him. and have built one of his boats. i like it
cougar

5

there is an alternate way of winching in heaps of sail (although slow) by modifiying (simply) a normal servo so it will continuly spin rather than only 90 degrees by making a simple winch drim to fit you have a winch, although a bit slow but if it dosen’t bother you it gets you sailing at no more expense than your controller with it’s free couple of servos. but if your after speed you need the $$$ and you might aswell throw out the extra servo you got with the controller. if you want a guide how to let me know.