Heavy crawler?

[rcdude]

Is having a heavy scale crawler good or bad?

[Rook82]

Depends on where the weight is and what parts cause it to be heavy. If it is a lot of low height weight such as in the axles, or wheels, that can often help. it helps keep it from being too tippy or roll easy. The higher up the weight the more prone to rolling over the rig will be.

The other side of the coin is the more weight you add, the more strength you need. Heavy tires and wheels require strong axles, driveshafts, transmission outputs, etc. They have put more stress on those parts and often depending on what the rig is, upgrades will be in order to hold up to the weight.

The good of weight is it often causes greater traction. There is more pressure on the tires so they naturally grip better. But if you go too heavy then you need to make adjustments to the foam in the tires. In rc that takes place of air which is used in 1:1 vehicles to adjust traction, you want it low enough that the tire can conform to the terrain. but not too low that the tires bottom out and ride on the rim, etc. In RC you can adjust that so you have to use stiffer or softer foams in place of air pressure adjustments. Heavier rigs need stiffer foams and lighter use softer. The other thing is it takes more power to spin heavier wheels/tires then it does lighter ones. And so on.

There is a lot of tuning involved depending on weight. but for sake of durrablity, most keep rigs as light as they can while being able to handle the strength requirements. Adding weight for the sake of weight would never really be a good idea. But adding weight because you need a stronger metal part compared to the stock plastic part is usually good. Adding weight as in adding a bunch of scale parts high on a roof, etc look cool. But hurt performance as it is high up and increases roll over potential. Adding weight as in weight in the tires or heavier rims is usually good as it is very low and helps traction and keeping the rig on the tires rather then the roof.

It is all trial and error. And that is a big part of the fun. Changing things to see what works and what doesnt.

[squatch71]

and you will need a servo with MORE torque...Got mine as a runner and tested it out....need a new servo...maybe one with 300 pounds!!!

[CrawlHer]

Originally Posted by squatch71

need a new servo...maybe one with 300 pounds!!!

i want a servo with 300 pounds of torque












lets try ounces

[squatch71]

lets not...I ment pounds!!!!!!!!!!!!