Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Unless the capacitor is the only device damaged repairing a motor controller is not something that is recommended. For one, most things are surface mounted and so soldering and desoldering require advanced skills and tools.

I'd be surprised if the bus cap is the dead device.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We lost one after running about four hours. It would only run in one direction and lost the coast function.

No short circuits. No metal chips. No wiring errors. No bad motors. No explanation.

We are watching the Jaguars closely.

Mr. Bill

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Same problems here. We called Luminary about it and they gave us the address to send the failed one too. We're getting a new one but we also bought 6 new Vics right then and there. Don't trust the Jags just yet.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We lost another Jaguar. Again will only go in one direction, but we kept the coast feature this time. We are only running four of them on our test/practice chassis and although they are driving Cims, we are not pushing them that hard.

A 50% failure rate is excessive.

Here's hoping all our opponents are running Jaguars.

Mr. Bill

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Not that we were planning on using them in the first place, but hearing this confirms my fears.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

2046 has had 1 Jaguar fail in the same fashion. Has there been any indication from the vendor of warranty coverage for this?

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

My team had four jaguars fail in the same day. two we got working again with some solder, but the others are being replaced by luminary micro.

We're now switching to victors.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We just had one fail the same way (lost forward power). Going to RMA it, but we'll probably use Victors on the robot. It's a shame because the Jaguars are much smoother.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Team 188 had two Jaguars fail in the exact same manner this past weekend. They now only operate in one direction.

One failed after about 2 hours of operation on the right side of our drivetrain, and the other failed on the left side of our drivetrain after 4 hours of operation. This happend while we were doing our driver tryouts - we were driving them for prolonged periods of time.

The fact that both sides of the drivetrain failed left us with the uneasy feeling that it was only a matter of time the rest would fail.

We are keeping a close eye on our remaining two Jaguars.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Ours don't work anymore. Back to good old victors.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Woot, new victors came in today ^_^

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Has there been an official Luminary Micro statement about Jaguar failures?
Are there ways to avoid failing Jaguars?

Most rookie teams don't have the funds to switch to victors, so hopefully we can give them advice on how to use the Jaguars safely.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Hello,

Scott again from Luminary Micro. As you know, forums are a great place for FRC teams to post issues and questions. This thread seems to be the highest concentration of concern for Jaguars in the FRC community at the moment and (therefore) the best place to (a) provide some information that should bolster your confidence in Jaguar, (b) ask for your help, and (c) commit (again) to you that Luminary Micro is dedicated to the success of FIRST and the FIRST community.

As you know, the rules allow you to choose the motor controller you want to use: either a Jaguar or a Victor. That said, and in the spirit of GP, we’d like to share some of our data with you. We are closely tracking the use of Jaguar modules, because we want your experience to be nothing short of phenomenal. The numbers say most of you are being very successful, but we are concerned about some reports of “stopped working” and “only works in reverse”.

To date, we have shipped 13,019 Jaguar modules, and we have issued RMAs and replaced 26 Jaguar modules for teams who have contacted us regarding failures, which is a 0.2% failure rate.

For the 26 failures we’ve replaced, here is a pareto of the complaints:
• DOA – 1
• PWM function – 1
• PWM missing – 3
• Neutral LED – 3
• Reverse only – 4
• Stopped working – 6
• No voltage on output – 4
• Other – 4

For the 9 returned failures that we’ve analyzed, here is a pareto of the analysis:
• Flash not programmed – 1
• Customer-induced EOS – 1
• Gate driver U6 failed – 4
• 15V regulator failed – 1
• Missing PWM connector – 2

We wouldn’t expect a Jaguar module to function if it is misused – for instance, if the power supply or motor is hooked up backward, or if the battery is recharged while the Jaguar is still attached. Victor modules don’t function when misused in these ways either.

One of the biggest challenges we’re facing in analyzing the 26 failures that we have received is getting good engineering information about how the Jaguars were being used in the team’s robot. We *love* pictures – they’re worth much more than 1000 words. In addition, as soon as we issue an RMA for a team experiencing failures, we immediately ship a replacement module so that they can get back to work. We’re seeing delays in getting the failed units back, as to date we have received only 9 of the 26 units for which RMAs were issued.

We haven’t been precise about getting team numbers for the RMAs that we have issued, so we may have heard from some of you under your school or club name. If not, this thread mentions a number of failures that we haven’t heard about:
• Team 71: 2 Jaguars
• Team 2046: 1 Jaguar
• Team 2040: 1 Jaguar
• Team 188: 2 Jaguars
• Team 1245: ?4? Jaguars
• Team 103: ?4? Jaguars
• Team 957: 2 Jaguars
We’d love to talk to you about what happened, and if you didn’t misuse the modules, we’d be happy to replace them and get your failures back in our factory for analysis.

Here’s the information that we’d love to get from anyone who is having trouble with their Jaguars:
1. How many Jaguars were powered up on the robot at time of failure?
2. How long had the robot been in operation when the failure occurred?
3. What sort of motor was being controlled? CIM? other?
4. Are the gear boxes coupled to one or two motors?
5. What was the power source? (Just in case it was not a 12V SLA battery)
6. What was the approximate condition of the battery? (fully charged, half, nearly empty)
7. How long since the last charge?
8. Was the battery isolated from the robot while it was being charged?
9. Other than the power source, motor and Servo PWM signal, are there any other connections to Jaguar?
10. Describe any other conditions leading up to the time when the unit failed.
11. Is there anything else notable about your robot?

For technical issues including RMA requests for the Jaguar modules, you can reach us at support@luminarymicro.com . If you’re having any problems, and you haven’t talked to us yet, please give us a try. We want you to be successful and have a great competition experience!

Regards,
Scott

http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

One of our Jags released its 'magic smoke' yesterday. It was under a very lite load. I like the smoothness of the Jags but if they're going to be this sensitive we'll not be using them.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Scott Emley again (from the Luminary Micro factory in Austin, TX) --

Thanks to Michelle Celio for clearing my lengthy response (from last night) for posting on this thread -- and sorting out my four attempts to get you the contextual information!

If you haven't seen my post yet, please look back two or three......

Regards,
Scott