Originally Posted by
RCEnduro
I ran a full battery through and flipped my big mat over to where it has a lot of grip and friction and made a small hill to crawl on, along with the tensioned tracks, and the results were the high side of OK @ 160F on the motors and 135F on the RX18 there is really no where for the air to go in there. but a fan might help yea I'll have to try it. Interestingly the tank became a lot more controllable at the end of the battery life. I started at 8.4 and ended at 7.3 the tank still wanted to run though, and still had a lot of speed.
Those are relatively normal temps while running 8.4 volts. The fans tend to drop temps by roughly 10% in my testing.
The 390 motors coupled to the Taigen 3:1 gearbox on a light tank such as your M41 do handle well and smooth out when the volts are around 7.6 to 7.9 volts. As you increase the tanks weight this smoother handling comes in earlier in the battery charge/volt output. It is almost immediate if you swap to rubber padded tracks on a weight balanced tank, at which point you will be happy you have the extra volt(s) available.
Couldn't tell you what is wrong with the airsoft unit. I think I have one that is still installed and functioning. I "remove" them from my tanks for various reasons. But it is not surprising that yours is not working, they tend to have short lived lives.
Everything is a balancing act, electronics + battery + motors + gearing + weight + traction = handling desire for a given terrain or driving style. Finding yours can be simple or as complex as you want to make it. I have done simple and complex and have enjoyed experimenting with both.