Team Losi’s Mini-T is a great entry level R/C truck. For under $100 you can have yourself a real R/C that comes complete with everything you need (except batteries, of course).

To come in at this price point, Team Losi has to cut some corners. The only knock I can really give this wonderful little truck is its steering servo. Simply put, the thing is junk. It’s jittery, has low torque and it will break if you look at it the wrong way.  Ironically, the truck ships with the best little servo saver I’ve ever seen on a truck this size. I wonder why?

With other R/C trucks the fix is easy enough.  Simply replace the servo. However, on the Mini-T its not that easy.  You see, the Mini-T uses a combined ESC & receiver that must be replaced if you replace the servo. Why? Because the servo’s amplifier is integrated into the ESC / receiver.  That’s why the stock servo has 4 wires coming out of it. To replace the servo you must replace the ESC / receiver.  Or do you??

Below I’m going to tell you how to replace the steering servo without replacing the stock ESC/ receiver. If you’re good at soldering little tiny wires then you can do this job.

Step 1: First off, find a new servo. I decided upon the Traxxas 2060.  It’s a little bigger than the stock servo and you can get it really cheap.  On TowerHobbies.com it’s $25 but on eBay you can often pick one up for $0.99. That’s where I got the one used in this article. Besides being cheap, this servo has more durable nylon gears and a bigger motor.  As you can see below, the motor has a brass gear. Note the cheap little plastic gear on the tiny stock servo. On my Mini-T, this little gear split in two from just a couple hours of use.

Step 2: Take apart both servos. Remove the servo saver first.  Next, remove the four tiny phillips head screws that hold each servo together. Be careful not to damage the heads. Now, gently split the servos.  The top and bottom servo housings will come off. 

Step 3: The Traxxas servo contains a circuit board with an integrated circuit, some micro resistors, a capacitor, and other miscellaneous components.  Using a soldering iron, carefully remove the circuit board from the servo’s housing. To do this, you will need to desolder the pot and the motor from the board.

Step 4: Now that you’ve removed the circuit board, carefully remove the capacitor. It’s the large orange colored disk shaped thing that bridges the motor’s connections. Save this.  Put the rest of the circuit board aside.  You won’t need it. 

Step 5: Solder the capacitor you removed from the circuit board across the motor’s leads.  The capacitor will smooth out the electrical signal and remove interference.  Without it, the servo will be twitchy.

Step 6: Turn your attention to the stock servo.  Looking at the picture below you can see there isn’t much in here.  Just electrical contacts, really. Nothing like the circuit board in the Traxxas servo.  That’s because the circuit board in the Traxxas servo is the amplification circuitry and on the Mini-T, that circuitry is inside of the ESC / receiver.

Step 7: Cut the wires that extend out of the servo (the four banded wires).  You won’t be needing anything else from this servo so you can set it all aside. 

Step 8: Take the wires you just cut from the Mini-T’s servo and the Traxxas servo and do the following. A) Solder the orange wire to the motor’s positive lead.  The motor should have a + marking next to this lead. B) Solder the white wire to the motor’s negative lead (do not mess up the polarity or else your servo’s motor will run backwards and damage the servo), C) Solder the black wire to the pot’s “top” lead (if all the leads are pointing to the right, see diagram below), D) Solder the red wire to the pot’s middle and bottom leads.  It’s important that you bridge these two leads. Below is a wiring diagram to follow.

And here’s the (nearly) finished job.  You can see the wiring really isn’t all that complicated. Next, close everything up and you’re done. Keep in mind that the stock servo saver will no longer work (the stock servo has a proprietary end). Luckily, Airtronics makes a servo saver that will fit (see photo below).

Airtronics Servo Saver and Mounting Brackets

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