Krawlin
Quarry Creeper
Traction. Its something every vehicle needs. Something everyone wants, yet can't master. The holy grail for automobiles, 1:1 and RC. A continous quest to grip, stick, hold, and grab. But how can you get the most traction? Well, there are many things that can help with traction. The most important one is your tires, but tires aren't the only thing you need to get traction. In this thread, I will go into detail on how to get insane grip from your tires.
What is traction? Traction is basically a certain amount of friction between two surfaces of one to get grip on another, yet still allowing one surface to move over another.
So, where shall we begin? Tires you say? Well since they are obviously the object that puts the power to the ground, and what has the traction in it.
Your RC tire is basically a compound of rubber, ranging in stiffness depending on the manufacturing and/or the processing of the rubber. But to understand why your tire gets traction, you have to know what rubber does.
Rubber. Almost all RC and 1:1 tires have some in it. But what is rubber you say? It comes out a tree commonly grown in Asia and Indoneasia, known as the "Rubber Tree." It produces a substance known as latex, used to make rubber. But what makes rubber the ingredient that is sticky? Well rubber, natural or synthetic, is sticky. Some compounds are less sticky than others, and the more sticky, the faster it wears because it is basically more concentrated and softer. And the less sticky is less concentrated and wears longer. The stucture of rubber is basically as follows-Aside from a few natural product impurities, natural rubber is essentially a polymer of isoprene units, a hydrocarbon diene monomer. Synthetic rubber can be made as a polymer of isoprene or various other monomers. The material properties of natural rubber make it an elastomer and a thermoplastic. Vulcanization has alot to do with the rubbers stickyness.
(Source-www.wikipedia.com) "Heres why- Vulcanization of rubber creates more disulphide bonds between chains so it makes each free section of chain shorter. The result is that the chains tighten more quickly for a given length of strain. This increases the elastic force constant and makes rubber harder and less extendable." (Source- www.wikipedia.com)
Downforce
I won't go much into down force because our crawlers go too slow for anything like a wing to give downforce.
Weight
Weight. One of the bigger factors in traction. Weight is the force of gravity pushing down on an object. Without weight, tires would have no traction on a surface. The greater the weight on a tire, the more traction the tire can get on that surface. Basically, if you hold your crawler up against a wall, but push on it pretty hard, the tires will want to grip, or get traction, and will want to go up the wall.
(Source-www.wikipedia.com)-"Here is a little more about traction from wikipedia-
It is important due to broad application to point out the specific case of multi-wheeled vehicles or vehicles with multiple contact patches between the tyre and the road surface. The constant coefficient of friction approximation is not adequate to describe real world maximum traction situations. If the normal force is increased, per given area of contact patch, the coefficient of friction decreases and as the normal force decreases, the coefficient of friction increases. If this were not true, then increasing tyre width, lowering tyre air pressure or increasing tyre diameter (all of which increase the area of the contact patch) would have little effect.
The importance of having a coefficient of friction with the above properties has significant implications in multi-wheeled vehicle handling. The case of two wheels sharing a given normal force is particularly important in vehicle design. Two identical tyres sharing a common load achieve maximum traction when they share the load equally. Likewise, an unequally loaded pair of tyres sharing a common load will not be able to achieve the same maximum traction. Consider the "traction pair". The less laden tyre’s coefficient of friction has increased but it’s load has decreased resulting in a modest drop in traction. Conversely, the heavier laden tyre’s coefficient of friction has decreased and even though it’s traction has increased, it is not enough to make up for the drop in traction of the less laden tyre. Put another way, when unbalanced, the heavier laden tyre’s traction increases less than the less laden tyre’s decrease in traction.
A vehicle has balanced or neutral handling when the front and rear pairs of tyres achieve maximum traction proportional to the normal force on each pair of tires. Example: If 60% of a vehicle's total normal force is at the front of the vehicle, then 60% of the traction should also need be in the front for balanced handling. This can be achieved by a number of means. Achieving balanced handling is non-trivial due to the dynamic forces involved such as changing corner radius, bank, braking, acceleration, aerodynamic loading and coefficient of friction changing factors such as road surface debris, moisture, temperature etc. Automotive engineers attempt to minimize the effect of non-linear forces as much as possible in order to simplify design considerations." (Source-www.wikipedaia.com)
How to gain traction-
Well, on our crawlers there are several great ways to gain traction. Axle weight, tire compound, and a couple of other little helping hands like chemical traction enhancers/softeners and tire modifcation(like a bunch of screws or snow chains)
First, we will talk about adding axle weight.
With the small size of our crawlers, even 2 ounces can affect their performance. Lead weights are a very effective way to add weight to your axles. You can put your electronics and batteries on them. You can also put BB's in the tires. The is a very direct and low weight. Another effective direct tire weight would be to add lead weights to the rims.
Tire compound.
Of course, tire compound is really going to affect your traction. If you have a hard, long wearing compound, you are not going to get very good traction now are you? Maybe with a good tread design, but still unlikely. But on the other hand, a soft compound with a not so good tread design wont get you very far either. You mainly want nubs, or bars, or a good interlocking design like Moabs. But you also want a good tread design with a soft compound. And the softer the compound, the more the tire will wrap around and/or stick to objects.
Chemical Traction Enhansers.
There are a large variety of companies out there who make good traction compound for tires. Traction compounds work by going in to the molecular structure of the tires and losens up the chain bonds of the tires material. This makes tires very soft and/or sticky.
Tire modifications.
There are many tire modifications out there, including narrowing, tread shaving, tire chains, screw mods (putting a bunch of little screws through the tire for ice driving or better traction on slippery rock).
TRACTION ADDING TIPS: IF YOU HAVE ANY POST THEM AND THEY WILL APPEAR HERE!
----New- Clean your tires!
Found this tip searching through the forums. Alot of people like to take a tooth brush and hot water and clean the tires up real good, making them look new and restoring alot of the stickyness from when they were new.
-Step one- Get together your supplies. This includes your tires, a toothbrush (stiff), some Dawn dish soap, and a sink with hot running water.
-Step two- Turn on the water, and put some Dawn soap on the tire. Just a thick ring around the tire will be good.
-Step three- With toothbrush in hand, start scrubbing it good pressure. Make sure to put your hand on the inside of the tire so you push harder in that area.
-Step four- Rinse the tire with the hot water, while still scrubbing.
-Step five- Make sure you get the soap out of all areas of the tire, and turn the tire inside out to get the water out from the inside. Then dry the tire off.
-Step six- repeat all steps above on the other 3 tires.
!Optional! Step seven- Add some traction compound to the tire to give it more stickyness.
New Tip From TylerV
New Tip from FrankyRizzo
New Tip from dezfan
I hope you enjoyed reading this comprehensive guide about tires and traction, and sorry for it being SOOOOO long.:lol:"thumbsup";-) Thanks for reading.
What is traction? Traction is basically a certain amount of friction between two surfaces of one to get grip on another, yet still allowing one surface to move over another.
So, where shall we begin? Tires you say? Well since they are obviously the object that puts the power to the ground, and what has the traction in it.
Your RC tire is basically a compound of rubber, ranging in stiffness depending on the manufacturing and/or the processing of the rubber. But to understand why your tire gets traction, you have to know what rubber does.
Rubber. Almost all RC and 1:1 tires have some in it. But what is rubber you say? It comes out a tree commonly grown in Asia and Indoneasia, known as the "Rubber Tree." It produces a substance known as latex, used to make rubber. But what makes rubber the ingredient that is sticky? Well rubber, natural or synthetic, is sticky. Some compounds are less sticky than others, and the more sticky, the faster it wears because it is basically more concentrated and softer. And the less sticky is less concentrated and wears longer. The stucture of rubber is basically as follows-Aside from a few natural product impurities, natural rubber is essentially a polymer of isoprene units, a hydrocarbon diene monomer. Synthetic rubber can be made as a polymer of isoprene or various other monomers. The material properties of natural rubber make it an elastomer and a thermoplastic. Vulcanization has alot to do with the rubbers stickyness.
(Source-www.wikipedia.com) "Heres why- Vulcanization of rubber creates more disulphide bonds between chains so it makes each free section of chain shorter. The result is that the chains tighten more quickly for a given length of strain. This increases the elastic force constant and makes rubber harder and less extendable." (Source- www.wikipedia.com)
Downforce
I won't go much into down force because our crawlers go too slow for anything like a wing to give downforce.
Weight
Weight. One of the bigger factors in traction. Weight is the force of gravity pushing down on an object. Without weight, tires would have no traction on a surface. The greater the weight on a tire, the more traction the tire can get on that surface. Basically, if you hold your crawler up against a wall, but push on it pretty hard, the tires will want to grip, or get traction, and will want to go up the wall.
(Source-www.wikipedia.com)-"Here is a little more about traction from wikipedia-
It is important due to broad application to point out the specific case of multi-wheeled vehicles or vehicles with multiple contact patches between the tyre and the road surface. The constant coefficient of friction approximation is not adequate to describe real world maximum traction situations. If the normal force is increased, per given area of contact patch, the coefficient of friction decreases and as the normal force decreases, the coefficient of friction increases. If this were not true, then increasing tyre width, lowering tyre air pressure or increasing tyre diameter (all of which increase the area of the contact patch) would have little effect.
The importance of having a coefficient of friction with the above properties has significant implications in multi-wheeled vehicle handling. The case of two wheels sharing a given normal force is particularly important in vehicle design. Two identical tyres sharing a common load achieve maximum traction when they share the load equally. Likewise, an unequally loaded pair of tyres sharing a common load will not be able to achieve the same maximum traction. Consider the "traction pair". The less laden tyre’s coefficient of friction has increased but it’s load has decreased resulting in a modest drop in traction. Conversely, the heavier laden tyre’s coefficient of friction has decreased and even though it’s traction has increased, it is not enough to make up for the drop in traction of the less laden tyre. Put another way, when unbalanced, the heavier laden tyre’s traction increases less than the less laden tyre’s decrease in traction.
A vehicle has balanced or neutral handling when the front and rear pairs of tyres achieve maximum traction proportional to the normal force on each pair of tires. Example: If 60% of a vehicle's total normal force is at the front of the vehicle, then 60% of the traction should also need be in the front for balanced handling. This can be achieved by a number of means. Achieving balanced handling is non-trivial due to the dynamic forces involved such as changing corner radius, bank, braking, acceleration, aerodynamic loading and coefficient of friction changing factors such as road surface debris, moisture, temperature etc. Automotive engineers attempt to minimize the effect of non-linear forces as much as possible in order to simplify design considerations." (Source-www.wikipedaia.com)
How to gain traction-
Well, on our crawlers there are several great ways to gain traction. Axle weight, tire compound, and a couple of other little helping hands like chemical traction enhancers/softeners and tire modifcation(like a bunch of screws or snow chains)
First, we will talk about adding axle weight.
With the small size of our crawlers, even 2 ounces can affect their performance. Lead weights are a very effective way to add weight to your axles. You can put your electronics and batteries on them. You can also put BB's in the tires. The is a very direct and low weight. Another effective direct tire weight would be to add lead weights to the rims.
Tire compound.
Of course, tire compound is really going to affect your traction. If you have a hard, long wearing compound, you are not going to get very good traction now are you? Maybe with a good tread design, but still unlikely. But on the other hand, a soft compound with a not so good tread design wont get you very far either. You mainly want nubs, or bars, or a good interlocking design like Moabs. But you also want a good tread design with a soft compound. And the softer the compound, the more the tire will wrap around and/or stick to objects.
Chemical Traction Enhansers.
There are a large variety of companies out there who make good traction compound for tires. Traction compounds work by going in to the molecular structure of the tires and losens up the chain bonds of the tires material. This makes tires very soft and/or sticky.
Tire modifications.
There are many tire modifications out there, including narrowing, tread shaving, tire chains, screw mods (putting a bunch of little screws through the tire for ice driving or better traction on slippery rock).
TRACTION ADDING TIPS: IF YOU HAVE ANY POST THEM AND THEY WILL APPEAR HERE!
----New- Clean your tires!
Found this tip searching through the forums. Alot of people like to take a tooth brush and hot water and clean the tires up real good, making them look new and restoring alot of the stickyness from when they were new.
-Step one- Get together your supplies. This includes your tires, a toothbrush (stiff), some Dawn dish soap, and a sink with hot running water.
-Step two- Turn on the water, and put some Dawn soap on the tire. Just a thick ring around the tire will be good.
-Step three- With toothbrush in hand, start scrubbing it good pressure. Make sure to put your hand on the inside of the tire so you push harder in that area.
-Step four- Rinse the tire with the hot water, while still scrubbing.
-Step five- Make sure you get the soap out of all areas of the tire, and turn the tire inside out to get the water out from the inside. Then dry the tire off.
-Step six- repeat all steps above on the other 3 tires.
!Optional! Step seven- Add some traction compound to the tire to give it more stickyness.
New Tip From TylerV
New Tip from FrankyRizzo
New Tip from dezfan
I hope you enjoyed reading this comprehensive guide about tires and traction, and sorry for it being SOOOOO long.:lol:"thumbsup";-) Thanks for reading.
Last edited:
