Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

can anyone email me a inventor file of the new jaguar?

samir13k@hotmail.com

I cant seem to find any inventor models of the new parts. I am currently working on a model of the cRio, but it will probably take me up to 2 more days.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Hello,

This is my first post to Chief Delphi, but it is certainly an important one!

My name is Scott Emley, and I am the product marketing manager at Luminary Micro. This seems to be the highest concentration of FRC teams and mentors, so this is where I am starting on getting the word out:

Luminary Micro has partnered with Digi-Key to make available the new Jaguar (MDL-BDC) speed controller to all FRC teams! Of course, you will receive a predetermined number of Jaguar speed controllers in your KoP distribution, and this program is designed to provide FRC teams exclusive access to additional speed controllers for a >30% discount to the normal resale price. The Jaguar discount program is only available to FRC teams and only through Digi-Key by visiting: http://sales.digikey.com/dkes/FirstRoboticsCompetition.asp


To qualify for the discount, you must enter in your team information, a shipping address within the general geographical location (state/country) of your team, and you must enter a valid phone number so the FRC Order Team at Digi-Key can validate your identity and thus honor your discount request.

It is important you remember to use the Digi-Key link above – or you will be like the rest of the world and have to pay full price. Don’t be distracted because Luminary Micro has several worldwide distributors (including Digi-Key) that will be carrying the Jaguar at full price.

By the way, Luminary Micro has unveiled the Jaguar to the rest of the world as a reference design, and now is a good time to remind teams that, while you might read or realize the full potential of the Jaguar on Luminary Micro’s website, the official FRC 2009 game rules (or restrictions for that matter) have not been announced. More explicitly, I discourage you from monkeying with the firmware on the Jaguar ---- even though you might be tempted. (I'm an engineer... I understand this temptation.) :)

As far as documentation is concerned, I've just uploaded the first revision of the Jaguar Getting Started Guide on the Jaguar microsite at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar. I'll keep referring to this site for the latest documentation regarding the Jaguar, so I encourage you to bookmark the link.

Looking forward to supporting you guys this year.

Best Regards,
Scott

P.S. I see #47 all over the place on this forum... and I love it!

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

I forgot to mention: I went ahead and uploaded the Jaguar's IGES file on the Jaguar microsite at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar.

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Scott, I've quoted your post on the FIRST Forums (http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=10418), so that teams who miss this thread will have another shot at finding the appropriate Jaguar information.

FIRST has been asking the control system beta test teams to aggregate their own information there, so it would be worth duplicating future postings on the subject to that forum as well.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Scott/utLB,

Thanks for your efforts in helping out FIRST kids worldwide!

I have a question about your company. Do you guys manufacture/fab your own parts or do you guys do the design and somebody else does the fab?

I'm a hardcore microchip lover so I don't think I'll ever stop (in the forseeable future) using them, but for high performance motion control applications, your products are very interesting... especially the ability to get parts that are both communications powerful and still incorporate a good assortment of motion control components.

I don't want to get this thread too off topic, so I'll make my last question short... do your parts come in a QFN or other itty bitty surface mount package?

Thanks,

q

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Q - I was a hardcore microchip fan, as I used them nearly exclusively through college. After playing with a few Luminaries, I am converted. My microcontroller heart is split between Luminary and Cypress.


http://www.luminarymicro.com/product...tor_guide.html
They list SOIC-28 LQFP-48/64/100 BGA-108. LQFP is about as small as I can solder by hand.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Thanks Eric.

Still not sure I'll be an instant convert or whatever, but I am interested in playing with some of these micros.

-q

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Will this discount be season-long or will it end soon? Important to know for teams who want to purchase some!

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Any chance you can supply a complete solid model of the housing? The iges file imports as a shell which can be troublesome to work with.

Is Luminary aware that it is common for teams to purchase many of these during a season? Teams that construct 2 complete robots may purchase 10-15 of these in a single season!

If these are purchased for non-FIRST applications will their full potential be available?

Thanks.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

According to the Getting Started guide, it is recommended to have 1/2" of empty space on the left and right side of each Jaguar speed controller. If you were to mount two Jaguars with their sides adjacent to each other, can this 1/2" space overlap, or would you need a total of 1" of space in between the two?

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

One thing teams will have to be aware of is that according to the manual, if there is an over current or temperature condition, the motor controller will shut down. The PWM input will have to go to neutral for the motor controller to go active again. For 2009 we will not have any feed back from the motor controller to know that it is in shut down. Teams will have to decide how to detect and reset the motor controller. For the drive this will probably be the responsibility of the driver. For arms and other uses a controller reset button may be useful. Going forward in 2010 with the CAN control method this condition can be handled in software and the user can be alerted that a shut down occurred. Also with proper monitoring code, the controller could implement strategies to stop the controller from going into hard shut down. First team are used to using total open loop controllers and have only been protected from faults by the circuit breakers. How to deal with intelligent controllers is something teams will have to work on in the future. This year without 2 way communication with the motor controller, the victors may be a better choice for uses other than drive motors.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

...provided teams are willing to pay ~40$ more and put up with a highly non-linear drive characteristic in favor of footprint and a lack of a latching over-current protection.

IMHO, the only advantage the victor has is size. The cost advantage and the linearity advantage leads me to believe that the Jaguar will see a lot of play this year.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Any extra motor controllers we buy will be Jaguars. It is a cheaper component and is more future proof for this competition. Seems like a no brainer to me.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Luminary Micro is a fabless semiconductor company, so we contract the fab to a foundry. We license the ARM Cortex-M3 core and integrate it into our SoC devices, like the LM3S2616 which is at the heart of the Jaguar motor controller.

The QFN package is not part of the portfolio at the moment.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

I'll have to check on whether this is still true. It was the case for the firmware for the Rev0 versions, but after discussions with FIRST I thought the decision was made to change this so that it would start back up again after the fault period. I will check on this and update the documentation if in error.

Thanks for pointing this out.

UPDATE: Not true anymore. The manual is out of date and is being updated. The PWM input does not have to return to neutral before the motor controller goes active again. This was the behaviour of the original prototype, but was soon changed.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

There's only a cost advantage if you're comparing buying new Victors to buying new Jaguars... most teams have plenty of Victors already from prior seasons. Free is a lot cheaper than $75...

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Wait... so your telling me that for this season, a victor's only advantage is size? The fact that a an overcurrent on a jaguar causes it to shutdown until a neutral signal is given scares me. Do you know how hectic it is for a driver in a match? How is he immediately supposed to diagnose an overcurrented controller and stop? The alternative being building some some sort of electronic monitering also doesn't appeal to me. Even if could be entirely done in code, the fact we have to send a nuetral signal upsets me.

With the victors, I've never seen one overcurrent in recent times. Heck, I've never had a 40 amp breaker pop during a match on any team I've been on in recent times.

You just made my team's decision for us. I had even got over my dislike of the new system, I had no unfair bias against it. Even if the jaguar doesn't overcurrent often, we'll be using victors. I feel IFI deserves it (2 robots with 6-10 motor controllers each is a lot of business for IFI, we don't have many spares), as for some reason it became cool for some at FIRST to hate them and make snide remarks whenever possible. I love IFI for what they did, and I hope oneday I'll learn to love NI, Luminary Micro, and the other companies for their new system (that love has to be earned with proven reliability and results, so I'm not bashing the new system).

We were seriously considering using all Jaguars for the "better performance".... but IFI is good people.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

The specifications table states that the Fan On temperature is 42 degrees Celcius and the Fan Off temperature is 38 degrees Celcius

The last Q&A question states:
So my question is, does the fan come on when you start running a motor, or when the temperature hits 42 degrees, or both?

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Hi q,

>>Do you guys manufacture/fab your own parts or do you guys do the design and somebody else does the fab?

[Emley] We use an external foundry, which provides economical and technical advantages for us. (For instance, we take advantage of automotive-grade Flash memory)

>>I'm a hardcore microchip lover so I don't think I'll ever stop (in the forseeable future) using them, but for high performance motion control applications, your products are very interesting... especially the ability to get parts that are both communications powerful and still incorporate a good assortment of motion control components.

[Emley] I hear from lots of folks that were just like you - that then got experience with ARM Cortex-M3, and then never looked back. But, out of genuine respect of all the great things that Microchip has done for the FIRST community over the past years, I will try not use my posts to explicity (or purposely) evangelize you. If you catch me "being a marketer", hold me accountable. ;)

>>I don't want to get this thread too off topic, so I'll make my last question short... do your parts come in a QFN or other itty bitty surface mount package?

[Emley] We currently offer Stellaris ARM Cortex-M3 microcontroller solutions in 28-SOIC, 48-LQFP, 64-LQFP, 100-LQFP, and 108-BGA. Our beat-rate of products is unprecedented, so if you don't see what you need, don't forget to look back every few months.

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Great question: The FRC discount is not a promotion, but rather a season-long way for us to contribute to your success as an FRC teammate or mentor.

The FRC discount is planned to last (at least) throughout the FRC2009 competition season - so don't panic.

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Unfortunately, I cannot supply a complete solid model at this time.

As for non-FRC apps, the full "raw potential" of the Jaguar is available. The short version of the story: you need CAN to enable Jaguar's non-FRC2009 features and we purposely stunted the Jaguar's CAN API development until after FRC2009 (for the purpose of FRC2009). So, the full potential is available, but the method to unleash these features (CAN) is purposely not yet so easy to use that a marketer like me could do it.

(Did I just cut myself down?)

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

The fan turns on when you start running the motor.

The fan turns off when you stop the motor, 10 seconds pass, and the temperature is 38 degrees C or less.

The intent of this is to avoid wasting your battery at the start of a match. The fan (ebmpapst 412 FH) is spec'd at 0.8 W (66 mA 12 V). By extension, the fans of 8 motor controllers draw more than half an amp waiting for the match to start. Yeah, nothing compared to what the motors draw during the match, but little bit helps, and it was simple enough to implement (a MOSFET and some software).

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Yes, the 1/2" space can overlap.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

I've checked on this and the Jaguar does not require a neutral signal following a fault (anymore). The original prototype firmware of Jaguar did, but it was fixed a long time ago. The documentation is incorrect and will be changed shortly.

Not surprising. A presentation at the 2008 FIRST Robotics Conference by Al Skierkiewicz says the breakers can function for a few seconds with up to 600% over current and almost 10 seconds up to 200% over current. See http://first.wpi.edu/Images/CMS/Firs...ierkiewicz.ppt

In testing at Luminary Micro, we drove a 150 lb robot rather mercilessly and didn't experience an over current fault. The only time an over current fault was generated was when the wheel of the robot was locked.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Please note that we have just updated the Getting Started Guide (rev JAGUAR-GSG-02) at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar.

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Maybe this isn't the same thing that you were talking about, but the just-posted Getting Started guide says that when the Jaguar is reset (because of a tripped breaker), you need to return it to neutral before it will accept incoming PWM signals. This seems like AdamHeard's comment is therefore still valid.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

The FAQ is (still) wrong and will be updated shortly.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Can someone confirm that the jaguar sold by Digikey is in fact the ones we can order already in advance for this year's game? I couldnt find the post of the vendors, if I recall, that either offered them or had them at a discount.
Sorry, dont want to read 100+ posts to maybe find the info here.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Here you go. http://sales.digikey.com/dkes/FirstR...ompetition.asp

From post #102. It took me two minutes to find it.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Please note that we have just updated the Getting Started Guide (rev JAGUAR-GSG-04) at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar to reflect this change.

Sorry for any confusion.

Regards,
Scott

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

thanks for saving me the trouble.
:D :D

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

You are quite welcome;)
Mahalo

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Does any one know if there is a way to monitor the state of the limit switches for debugging purposes? Maybe by adding a LED in series with the Limit switches or something?

-Oris-

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

This information is available on the data sheet available from Luminary:

http://www.luminarymicro.com/products/rdk-bdc.html

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Your best bet is to get some double pole microswitches and wire one pole into the Jag, and the second pole into a digital sidecar or something else. When we have access to the CAN interface, the state will be monitored from there, but that's not happening this year.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

The limit switch input for the Jag are normally closed. So, it would be possible to build a simple LED driver board that would turn on an LED if it saw the ground go away.
This, of course, is subject to the rules.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

It occurs to me that you could use the NO side of the micro switch to drive your LED to the ground of the Jaguar. You'd want to grab your source voltage from some safe 5V supply, possibly on the Jag itself. Though this only tells you the position of your limit switch, not necessarily what the Jag is reading.

Reading the actual pin on the Jag would be trickier, as you'd need to make very certain you're no accidentally pulling the input high or low with your circuit.

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

does anyone know exactly how big this is?

or has anyone found or made and inventor version yet? :D

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Luminary Micro has CAD files posted
http://www.luminarymicro.com/products/mdl_bdc.html

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

I couldnt find the CAD files. I downloaded one thing but it was only documents talking about it

Re: New Speed Controller Announced
 

Here's a direct link to the download: http://www.luminarymicro.com/index.p...5&Itemid=59 1

www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar