Anomander

It would be hard - the motor itself moves in any direction for a limited time (~1s) even when there is no physical limitation or force - it just stops, must be some electric safety measure. Because of the huge ratio of the planetary gears, this 1s move is not enough to move the head of the servo all the way around... speaking of which - there are plastic pieces that limit the movement of the head (the piece that you put axles into) to roughly 90 degrees in any direction, so someone would have to literally carve in the plastic mold to remove it...

Wow, Lego just contacted me and offered a replacement (it will take 2-4 weeks, but I understand, no problem). I had a second case opened with them when I described them how the insides of the servo looked like when I removed the grease and that it solved the issue back then (I was sure it was it, was surprised when it got broken again next day). I never denied to them that I was trying to fix it by myself - they had all the right to not helping me and I would understand that. I'm very impressed by this gesture of good will, and I will surely recommend buying Lego sets to my friends, knowing how good support they will get, even with something goes wrong. Please don't overuse this...

The finger is there only by coincidence, I was recording with one hand, and had to keep the pilot in place :) The setup in the video is [power box] <-> [iR tower] <-> [servomotor]. I've turned off the power at the very end (shown) and put it back again to show it does not autocenter from this position. I'm unable to zero the servomotor using the instructions given in the 9398 book, it's just doesn't happen anymore. In the movie the servo was ok when turning to one side, then it went back to center. When I tried the other direction it would go there, and get stuck. The only way to move it from there was to use the opposite direction on the pilot. I can put the grease back again (I can understand it is needed longterm, removed it because I thought it may cause some connection problems between the copper path and the arms that move with the head of the servo), but I'm sceptical about it (I don't think it will solve the issue). Will update you once I try it out.

Hi all, I'm new here, but been an AFOL for a few years after my "dark ages". I'm a collector - I like the big cars and constructions machines, so recently I decided to get the Crawler 9398 before it goes out of production and get ridiculous prices... I really liked the suspension, looks and the possibilites with the PF parts that we get in this set. So I got a new one, and unfortunately the servomotor (the one used for steering) seems to broke after just 6 days (I still used the 1st set of batteries on it, it wasn't used in any hard conditions or abused in any way, used only indoors). The servo does not autocenter anymore after releasing the controls. This is my first IR remote set, so I don't have many ways to troubleshoot if it's the servo or the IR receiver fault (tried both channels, new batteries, didn't help). Wrote to lego support, but I don't have any proof to show that I bought this set recently (lost the docket), still didn't get any reply from them (it's 4 days). I took a look inside the servomotor, there was a lot of white grease inside it, removed most of it and it started working again after reassembling, but then finally broke the next day (again no autocenter, this time for both directions). I made a youtube movie that shows how it behaved before I took it apart - has anyone seen something like this, is there any fix? I must say I'm a bit disappointed with this set and lego quality - my previous 'flag ship' 42009 came with 2 missing parts, and now this...