Tank Tread Kit

From VEX Wiki

Tank treads will enable your robot to explore much more demanding terrain than ordinary wheels. Tank treads distribute a vehicle’s weight more evenly than wheels, allowing your robot to move more easily in sand or on soft, spongy surfaces into which wheels would sink and bog down. This increased surface area also gives your robot more traction for hauling heavy loads up an incline. And because each link can grip the surface over which it’s traveling, a robot with tank treads can more easily climb obstacles or traverse crevasses in which wheels would get stuck.

The tread links come preassembled in two long chains of 85 links apiece. The link material is slightly flexible, which makes it easy to separate links to change the length of the chain. Just bend the arms out – GENTLY! – just enough to disengage the hole from the posts on the next link. Simply reverse the process to reassemble the links.

Tips

• To prevent tank tread binding, do not run treads overly tight. The design of the Vex tank treads allows for them to run with a small amount of slack, without derailing. Over-tensioning these treads will cause additional friction in the tread rotation, and decrease the efficiency of the system. Also search out other sources of binding and inefficiency; reducing these will result in a much smoother operation.

Specifications

Material Type

• Delrin plastic

Size

• Width:1.5" (38.1mm)
• Wheel Diameter:2.375" (60.3mm)
• Length:170 Links = 65.5" (1664mm) when laid in one continuous flat section.

Weight

• Drive/idler wheels:0.038 lbs each
• Double Bogie:0.078 lbs each
• Single Bogie:0.040 lbs each