I should have known better

[markbt73]

So almost all my RC stuff is currently in boxes in my new garage in Maryland. I'm at the old house in Portland, with one car left - my old bitsa Hornet. Today, I had a little time to kill, so I charged up a battery, switched everything on, and got a total of fifteen seconds in before the cheap eBay S3003 knockoff servo packed it in.

Fifteen seconds. It was brand new. Another one in the same package of 4 was dead on arrival. I can't remember which cars the other two ended up in, but when I unpack everything, I'll just throw them out too. No sense waiting for them to conk out in the middle of a run.

Don't even bother with these things, or anything like them. They're all over eBay, they probably all come from the same factory in China, and they're all basically landfill. I should have known. I feel stupid, and I don't like being made a fool of. Hopefully someone else who was thinking of wasting money on this garbage will see this post and be spared $18 and a lot of hassle.

And of course, there's no place to leave a product review on eBay. Whatever, at least it was a cheap lesson. It just annoys me.

[Jonathon Gillham]

I think everyone has made that mistake. I bought some MG995 servos, similar price for 4. One went and took an ESC (luckily the rx which was an expensive futaba one was fine) with it which is when they all got replaced.

[Frog Jumper]

Ouch!  But i guess it was only $18.

I cant count the number of times Ive bought shiny chinese shocks only to go back to the trusty Tamiya CVAs…

[ADRay1000]

similarly, I found a great deal on a 4 pack of Apple AirTags I got for my wife for Christmas. 
 

Lo & behold, they start chirping after a month (what they do before they die). 
 

come to find out the stupid things are only expected to last 12 months anyway…

[Otis311]

I hate being a middleman. The manufactures should just skip a step and dump this stuff direct in the landfill.

[Kowalski86]

Random Joe: "Why does my RC not steer correctly?"

Me: Points at their cheapo off-brand servo 

[tim.senecal]

What is really sad is when i get a contract job to fix something that an owner spent THOUSANDS of dollars to get someone whose reputation is highly regarded to build originally.  It gets to me, and has four $3 dollar servos in it, and a $15 ESC...