Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Wildstang apparently lost one yesterday as well. Same failure case as Beatty and others - only 1 direction works. After a few minutes of making fun of software for having bugs (:yikes:) we realized the Jaguar LED was lighting up but the motor was not moving. It was at the end of the meeting so we didn't do much more, but we'll be pulling it off the robot at the next meeting to do some bench tests to confirm our diagnosis.

As for how we've used it, it was freshly installed on our never-been-driven prototype and was not working the very first time we used it. We think it may have been used on a prototype drivetrain we built in December, but we had only used that prototype lightly - certainly never putting it under any serious strain.

We already distrusted the Jaguars enough based on what we've heard here that we weren't planning on using them on the drive wheels, but we thought we'd give them a shot for use in some lower-current situations. If we confirm that this incident is definitely a Jaguar failure we'll almost certainly avoid using them this year. No RMA policy can make up for the loss of an important match.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind teams that the development engineers absolutely must have all failure mode data available in order to do their jobs well.

Scott quoted a 0.2% failure rate, which is acceptable by my standards considering the RMA policy. What he can't quote or analyze is unreported failures. Each unreported failure represents a disconnect in our community, because the people who create and the people who use see two different data sets.

For example, it is possible that 50% of my analog breakouts are going up in smoke, but teams aren't reporting it because they simply use the other one. If this is the case (unlikely), we need to know it so we can fix it.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

It's dangerous to look at this issue from a purely statistical point of view. First of all, there's a very, very good chance that the majority of those 13,000 Jaguars shipped have not yet been used. Many teams do not have a robot up and running for practice in week 4 yet. Many other teams (like 1114, apparently) are avoiding them in the first place. When I hear teams like 71, 188, 11, and others all rattle off the same problem, I can see that there's an issue. It would be very foolish for FIRST or LM to ignore the anecdotal evidence that is cropping up, as while the numbers now are small, it very well could be an early indicator of a larger issue.

{edit} I should say I don't have any reason to believe that FIRST and/or LM is ignoring this issue... but I do get concerned when I hear statements to the effect of "The failure rate is acceptable" since that suggests that it might not be taken seriously. {/edit}

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

ours have not given us any problems much better than the victors

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

My purpose of actively posting is to attempt to retrieve useful information from those "anecdotally" (to use your parlance :) ) reporting failures on this forum... as the small percentage of returns AND the fact that we cannot reproduce any failures even after repeated vicious testing is not getting us any closer to understanding a root cause.

Our engineers are literally begging me for more information from you guys (again, see my previous post on questions we are interested in), and I hope that anyone who has worked with us feels that we are quite responsive and easy to work with. Please help us to help the community. support@luminarymicro.com

Regards,
Scott

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

1075 Immediately put our 4 Jags to use in a proto-bot we built in december with our old drive units. 4 cims, 2 each side into AM Supershifters, and they haven't seemed to give us any problems, except when theres a low battery they seem to have some sort of overload protection where the motor will just give up trying if it can't seem to move with the power its given. I suspect this is a feature, rather than a problem. They've probably got 4 or 5 hours of run time on them, and no issues yet...

Those teams with dead ones, get em to LM so they can figure out why, so that we dont have mass Jaguar failure come week 1.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

For all we know all the ones that broke could have been dropped on the ground, hit with a hammer a few times, and thrown out the window. And do not get me started on my friend of a friend who see ghosts. Acting on anecdotal evidence is usually not a very good idea.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We thought we had a problem with a Jaguar last night, our shooter motor was running at only half speed. Turns out it was a programming problem, it was programmed to use a Victor instead of a Jaguar.

No hardware problems yet, we should be putting them to a ggood test over the next two weeks.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Guys, Please ... A vendor (Luminary Micro) has asked us (The FIRST teams) to assist in collecting data so that they may resolve a potential issue with their product (Jaguars).

We, in FIRST, have a massive engineering group that should be able to help out, so that those within our group that do not have access to this information will be protected.

Please, if you have a failure, let LM know. Give them all the information they've asked for, and more. Maybe your bit of 'anecdotal' information gives them the key to fixing whatever may be wrong with the Jaguars. We need to do this now so that week 1 will not have a bunch of rookies with robots that don't run ... and they will not know why.

This is what GP is all about. Helping without being asked ... because it is right to do so.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Wow... so you think Bill Beatty and his team smashed their Jaguars with a hammer? Sorry... there's people posting about problems in this thread that I consider trustworthy. They've been in FIRST a long time and know how to properly handle and wire up a speed controller. When Bill says they have 2 failures, I believe him and I know they didn't screw up on their end.

Daniel, I don't think anyone is advocating that we not provide info to LM. I'm just pointing out that saying the failure rate is only 0.2% and "that kind of failure rate is acceptable to me" don't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. That's a personal opinion - everyone else is free to think whatever they wish.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Yeah, I highly doubt 71, 188, 11, and 111 were careless with their Jags. When several of the most respected, storied teams in FIRST are saying they're having problems, the likelihood is that many more less-well-known teams are having problems too.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

The acceptability of that 0.2% number was not given by utlinebacker of Luminary Micro, it was given by EricVanWyk (utlinebacker just gave us the data, which I consider exceptionally good and open for a vendor). From a manufacturing standpoint 0.2% is 2KP/M and while that isn't good it is acceptable from a purely manufacturing point of view.

I'll be honest, my biggest concern is NOT that there might be an issue with the Jaguars. My biggest concern IS if there is a problem with the Jaguars that we don't get to the bottom of this quickly enough so that LM can have a 'fix' ready by the week 1 regionals, and we'll have a number of rookie teams dead on the field. Remember that we, as veterans, have access to a lot of information (like CD) that rookies do not know exist, therefore, I believe it is our duty to the community to make sure that issues like this get resolved before week 1.

So, please everyone, give LM all the information they are asking for and then some. Let them know your battery level, how much current the motor was drawing, whether you had an ESD event (and how long after it failed), etc, etc.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

No electrical problems i think, but 2 of our gearbox's got jammed and now we cant test our drive system until Saturday =[

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

I can't believe hyperbole was lost on you. I did try to make it a bit obvious with the whole throw it out the window bit. The point still stands though. Unless Bill Beatty sleeps with his speed controllers there is no way for sure to know that there was not accidental damage. I tend to rely on science which means not relying on anecdotal evidence which means that you should send them your speed controllers as fast as possible.
Some ESD events that can cause damage are below the level of perception for humans.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We were impressed with the controllability of the Jaguars. We have been using 2 for the past several weeks with no problems. So far, the smooth control beats anything we saw with the victors.

Though we charge our batteries offline, I was unaware of the danger of charging them while connected to the control system.

I appreciate the lengthy post from utlinebacker. It's good to have direct contact with the vendor.:)