It is true that too much grip is a bad thing. There is a balance in the middle somewhere. Since the tracks you are making are based off of the idea I actually built and used on one of my tanks I can lend some insight into them. The pics in the article are of my Sturmtiger. My original thoughts for the tracks were very similar to yours (ie: using blocks like that between the chains). I didn't do it for simplicity sake and cost. I was trying to make my tracks on the cheap. I have since changed to stiffer steel 60 pitch tabletop chain tracks (Rexnord 1864K4.5 http://www.rexnord.com/rexnord_web_media_prod/pdfs/1864%20Series%20TableTop%20Chain%20Product%20Portfolio.pdf ). I did this to minimize the side to side flexing of my original design you have modified. The design you are using may work for your application, but there are some things to take into consideration. The problems I had with the tracks was keeping them on the sprockets. I was using a free wheeling set of toothed sprocket on the front and a set of toothed drive sprockets on the rear. With enough tension, the tracks will stay on the sprockets well enough. My issue was that tension. The more tension I put on them, the more drive line losses I got (ie: the motors had to work too hard). I also had a full suspension on my tank. As the tension increases it would compress my suspension and therefore cause it not to work as intended. With a fixed suspension, that issue would go away. I'm assuming since it's a mower that it won't have a suspension on it. You will at a bare minimum want to add guide teeth to your tracks to keep the tracks running straight through your road wheels and make sure the tracks stay under the wheels. Without guide teeth, your tracks could run out from under the road wheels doing neutral turns. You could also add outer guides to the drive and idler sprockets at the front and rear of the mower to aid in keeping the tracks on the sprockets. If I were doing what you are doing, that's what I would do so I could keep the track tension on the looser side to accommodate sucking up rocks or twigs into the tracks.
I haven't abandoned my track idea, but the prefab Rexnord tracks were about $100 when I found them on Ebay. Kinda got lucky I think with those. That $100 was well spent saving me time and frustration of building my own. I may revisit my idea and fix the issues with it one day, but I haven't really had much time to devote to tanks in the last year or so. Derek T065 SV016 On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 4:55 PM, Jean-Maxime Cyr St-Pierre < j-maxh...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Probably some experienced guys would say that too much grip mean > difficulties to turn neutral on grass and drawn to much amp. to your motors. > > In second I would say that some guides thooths would probably work better > even if it's seemmed to work. Your super traction will probably trow off > your track at the first turn... > > I'm not experienced a lot but i got a 80% tank hull that will maybe > running this weeckend, but a lot of guys reduce their grip with flat tracks > even let some screws heads out to run better on all > > conditions.. > > Out of that good work and make lots of testing cause tracks are cool but > hard to master!!! > > > Jean-Maxime Cyr St-Pierre > > ------------------------------ > Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2015 12:00:56 -0800 > From: jupd...@gmail.com > To: rctankcombat@googlegroups.com > Subject: [TANKS] New Track Idea > > > Hello all, > > My name is Josh and I am a robotics engineer. I do a lot of medical > robotics during the day and mess around with RC stuff for fun. I was > thinking about building a RC lawn mower because I figured it would be more > fun to build the robot then mow my lawn. Plus sitting in the shade with a > beer while I drive a RC lawn mower around the yard sounds great. Anyway, > stumbled onto this group when looking at the track options. This page was > really helpful http://www.rctankcombat.com/articles/track-systems/ and I > got an idea that I wanted to see what people thought of it. > > I really liked the chain and bolt track idea. Using standard roller chain > has a lot of advantages. Lots of sizes, strong, standard drive parts. But I > did not like how all the load was on the chain and not the middle tread. > Seems like you might not get much grip in some situations. So I started > toying around with the idea of a custom tread, that you mounted to the > roller chain. You could have various sizes, for different chain. Maybe even > have different tread profiles to pick from. I 3d printed some parts to make > prototypes and I ordered the materials to cast about 50-100 parts. I > figured I would see what you guys thought. Maybe pick your brains. The > final part would probably be injection molded. I do this kind of stuff at > work so I have some contacts. > > Any comments welcome. The red ones match #35 chain and are 3" wide, the > black match #40 chain and are 4" wide, and the white match #50 chain and > are 5" wide. Maybe I am just missing something obvious since I have never > build a tracked vehicle. > > > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-F-AICRT5vKw/VNUcpex0dwI/AAAAAAAABXQ/Agf-dmWoKGw/s1600/IMG_1531.JPG> > <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0E-GpLjPuIo/VNUcwIC17YI/AAAAAAAABXY/ygOh9-3_2dY/s1600/IMG_1533.JPG> > <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5aXoysSZli0/VNUcx3wP84I/AAAAAAAABXg/WjexKDXY3mg/s1600/IMG_1534.JPG> > > > <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-04dw5Sw0qPw/VNUdIw681lI/AAAAAAAABX4/sF6423Zs5W4/s1600/photo%2B1%2B%281%29.JPG> > <https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-e4scRdxGU1w/VNUdABETwAI/AAAAAAAABXw/YMSAPuhD9Kk/s1600/IMG_1532.JPG> > <https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OOTIRKRmiLY/VNUc2u_MMbI/AAAAAAAABXo/PKV_lg2H1wU/s1600/photo%2B3%2B%281%29.JPG> > > -- > -- > You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. > To post a message, send email to rctankcombat@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe, send email to rctankcombat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R/C Tank Combat" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rctankcombat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > -- > You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. > To post a message, send email to rctankcombat@googlegroups.com > To unsubscribe, send email to rctankcombat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > Visit the group at http://groups.google.com/group/rctankcombat > > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "R/C Tank Combat" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rctankcombat+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- -- You are currently subscribed to the "R/C Tank Combat" group. 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