Tank Traction

[Meter rat]

Yes, I saw your post on Hobby Squawk. Adding weight can assist, in traction. Depends on the track. Heng Long metal tracks, have no better grip than the plastic ones, and look bloody awful In my opinion. I have a T72, Leopard 2, Abram, and a Challenger. The Leopard, is a basic plastic tank with plastic tracks, and is very light compared to the other two. It still gets all the places the other three do, and my garden is not exactly golf green standard. Adding weight will assist, but it brings its own issues, in that it saps power, and causing hull flex, which causes the tracks to come off more frequently. You are then into motor, and gearboxes upgrades, hull reinforcement. I also read, what has been written about suspension over on HS. Again there is more to what has been said, in that, one suspension is better than another type of suspension. All mine run the coil springs, which cope well with the weight, but are more adjustable. So my Challenger runs heavy duty springs, on the hard setting, on wheel positions 1 and 6, and heavy duty, on the soft setting on wheel positions 5. With the rest on standard springs on soft settings. Doing it this way assists with track retention.
Long wheel base tanks like those you have mentioned can do pivot turns, but you are better doing wide turns I am afraid. There is no easy solution to this problem. You can accept the issue, or spend a lot of money, and still get track slip, in certain circumstances.

[Balcifer]

Yes, I saw your post on Hobby Squawk. Adding weight can assist, in traction. Depends on the track. Heng Long metal tracks, have no better grip than the plastic ones, and look bloody awful In my opinion. I have a T72, Leopard 2, Abram, and a Challenger. The Leopard, is a basic plastic tank with plastic tracks, and is very light compared to the other two. It still gets all the places the other three do, and my garden is not exactly golf green standard. Adding weight will assist, but it brings its own issues, in that it saps power, and causing hull flex, which causes the tracks to come off more frequently. You are then into motor, and gearboxes upgrades, hull reinforcement. I also read, what has been written about suspension over on HS. Again there is more to what has been said, in that, one suspension is better than another type of suspension. All mine run the coil springs, which cope well with the weight, but are more adjustable. So my Challenger runs heavy duty springs, on the hard setting, on wheel positions 1 and 6, and heavy duty, on the soft setting on wheel positions 5. With the rest on standard springs on soft settings. Doing it this way assists with track retention.
Long wheel base tanks like those you have mentioned can do pivot turns, but you are better doing wide turns I am afraid. There is no easy solution to this problem. You can accept the issue, or spend a lot of money, and still get track slip, in certain circumstances.

The new versions tanks seem to have a more sturdy plastic, adding metal tracks and wheels wouldn't affect hull. The tanks I got both have metal gear box already and the motor is the same for the professional and the upgraded (I have)

[tomhugill]

Chances are the tracks are getting snagged on the grass which is causing them to slip. Over time these tracks will eventually snap or strip your gearboxes. So as with any tank, it’s would be advised not to pivot on grass

With steel gearboxes that shouldn't happen

[Jib]

Yeah, adding weight is about all you can do. I have a metal brace kit, metal tracks with plastic pads, a metal turret ring, and the 550 gearboxes with 540 motors. I’d like to get the lower metal hull sold by ToucanHobby at some point, but it’s like $500 or so bucks.

Even with all of this, the HL Abrams just performs bad in grass above 2”. I’m to the point now where even with all of my upgrades I avoid driving it in the grass if I can. It just sucks it all into the drive sprocket and I have to unjam it all the time while
I’m out. I think this is a feature of the Abrams though, as the real thing apparently does the same thing if you drive over too much C wire/barbed wire. My other tanks that don’t have problems with this are also front wheel drive, so maybe that has something to do with it as well.