Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Three of also failed :( (fortunately early on, so we could plan on victors.) They failed with a very faint burning smell. We never ran the last one (I don't think.) They worked fine for a few minutes, then stopped altogether. I was messaged by utlinebacker, and I sent it to our head mentor. It was during the benchtop test. We will probably sort out the 14 questions tonight. I really want to use them (after this year), so I hope someone finds the problem.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Kudos to Luminary Micro. We got a replacement Jaguar just two day after we told them about our problem. That's exceptional customer support. We like the Jaguars better than the Victors and even though we've had one Jaguar fail we're going to stick with them on the drive motors

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

one of ours burned. we found the problem was in the manufacturing. one of the connections at the bottom of the board was bad

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

All four of ours failed, for no apparent reason, and when we replaced them with the victors, everything was working fine. Before they fried, we had the jaguars doing all sorts of funky things like making strange sounds when we first got them, and running the motors at different speed when they read the same speed. We've decided we're sticking with the Victors rather than buying new jaguars.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

One of ours smoked tonight, very faint smell, now only works in one direction.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

I find this more likely attributable to user error, than a manufacturing defect that all four of your teams Jags were defective and making strange sounds and running the motors erratically out of the box. I'm willing to be wrong here, just sounds unlikely to me. Make sure you get them to LM for RMA.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Team 449 had one jaguar fail a week or two ago. Same problem many are reporting- one direction stopped working (didn't bother to check for burning smell.) However, we kept running it to try and make it work (blaming the programmers) and eventually managed to burn out the other direction. [Spoiler alert!] It was on a CIM in an application that, in order to fire, required it to run the CIM at full power for a few microseconds, then run it slowly in reverse. It never stalled, but this application is almost worse than stalling it (zero to full forward to backwards very quickly.) It was the only Jaguar connected at that time, and was properly wired through fuses and such.

We really needed the fine control of a Jaguar, so we replaced it with one. We are using 8 others on the robot, and none of them have burned out since that first incident. We have fired the offending CIM in the exact same application countless (well maybe 100) times since, and the Jaguar seems fine. I haven't filed a report with LM yet, but plan on doing so in the near future. I hesitated before because some of our electronics team ripped it open to look at the insides (nothing was out of place or burnt.)

I'm not Luminary Micro, but if I had to analyze the failures I'd say that they are due to manufacturing defects and not user problems. Also, it seems that if they fail, they fail fairly early in usage (just a few hours.) For this reason I wouldn't discourage buying them, as long as you use them thoroughly and find that they are in good shape before bringing them to competition. Our team has had as many Victor failures as Jaguar failures (1). Then again, we've been using Victors for years. Hopefully LM can get this straightened out, but so far most Jaguars seem fine and robust-- it's just a small minority that aren't.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Fusion had their first Jaguar failure. It only runs the motor in reverse. We had a lot of hours on this Jaguar, and it failed unexpectedly. They're going to call LM Monday to get things sorted out. We replaced it with another Jag, and it's working fine.

Also, there's no chance of there being metal. This was on our Proto-bot, which is made of wood and the KOP chassis.

I will post the details later when I'm not falling asleep. If I forget, or if someone wants the information, PM me. I hopefully won't forget.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

I hope that the jaguars work OK because we are planning on using them on our robot.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Thank you to the teams that have answered my call-to-action. Since my first lengthy request on this thread, we have heard from more teams and we’ve received more returns that might help us identify the root cause of issues that some of you are experiencing. I especially appreciate those of you that have answered my PM’s in my attempt to extract more information from you. Keep that communication coming!

Here is the (updated) status as of Friday evening, 2/6:

Since November, we have received 44 reported failures that we have immediately replaced. Here is a pareto of the complaints as reported:
• DOA:
-- Neutral LED – 5
-- PWM Missing – 3
-- PWM function – 6
• Reverse only – 11
• Forward only - 1
• No voltage on output – 4
• Incorrect output voltage - 3
• Stopped working – 6
• Other – 5

Of those 44 reported failures, 17 units have been returned to us. We have analyzed all the returned units, and here is a pareto of the analyses:
• Flash not programmed – 1
• Customer-induced EOS – 1
• Gate driver U6 failed – 8
• 5V regulator failed – 4
• Missing PWM connector – 3

While most teams still appear to be quite successful in using their Jaguars (44 failures represents a total of 0.3% of all Jaguars we have shipped for FRC 2009), I recognize that some audience members (a) might have been one of those affected by a failure, or (b) like me, might panic with word of ANY unexplained failures. While we are continuing to actively follow up with each affected team, we also commit to report any findings, conclusions, or prescribed courses of action back to the community.

My echoing reminder: If you have experienced a failure, PLEASE contact us at support@luminarymicro.com. When you do, PLEASE provide us as much information about your failure as possible (see my questions list here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...0&postcount=57 – and send us pictures of your system, which are exceptionally helpful for us in understanding your useage model). Finally, if you do receive an RMA replacement unit, PLEASE ship us the Jaguar that is giving you trouble. As you can see from above, we have still received less than 40% of all RMAs we have issued – which makes failure analysis quite challenging.

Regards,
Scott

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

we didn't actualy drive yet or use the victor's we'll probably know about this issue this week but our mentor wat telling us that victor's fail if debris falls in to them (Eg. someone drilling over them) this may be the issue at hand

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

Issue: Jaguar only outputs in the reverse direction.

1. How many Jaguars were powered up on the robot at time of failure?
A: 2

2. How long had the robot been in operation when the failure occurred?
A: Not sure. This one has been on since we received the control system in November without issue until Thursday night.

3. What sort of motor was being controlled? CIM? other?
A: CIM

4. Are the gear boxes coupled to one or two motors?
A: 1 Motor to 1 Tough Box

5. What was the power source? (Just in case it was not a 12V SLA battery)
A: A MK 12V battery.

6. What was the approximate condition of the battery? (fully charged, half, nearly empty)
A: Not sure... probably near full

7. How long since the last charge?
A: Not sure... probably the night before.

8. Was the battery isolated from the robot while it was being charged?
A: Yes, Team Fusion only charges the batteries off the robot.

9. Other than the power source, motor and Servo PWM signal, are there any other connections to Jaguar?
A: No, just the 12V power in, Motor output, and a PWM cable.

10. Describe any other conditions leading up to the time when the unit failed.
A: None that I know of. I believe they were just testing out some programming and it stopped working. No smoke, nothing. I inspected the unit, and did not see any physical damage.

11. Is there anything else notable about your robot?
A: It was a very basic kitbot with 2 wheels and a caster.

A new Jaguar was installed to replace the broken one, no other issues have been experienced.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We have lost 3 jags and are switching to Victors for now.

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We had one fail over the weekend. It would only work in one direction. We used them on the practice bot with no problem, then when we put it on the competition bot it never worked properly. The other side has worked fine so far, and the one we replaced it with works too so far...

Re: how many people have had failing jaguars
 

We've now run 13 Jaguars, many of them for 2 months, without a single failure.

One thing we have noticed (which should be obvious) is that it is much easier to activate the overcurrent protection if you have a loose wire. Every time we've thought we've had a problem, we've found a loose wire and fixing the wire makes the problem go away. Make sure ALL of your electrical wires are tight. A really drained battery also does this.

If you're having problems right out of the box, make sure the limit switch jumpers are installed.

One other piece of possibly useful information is that all of our Jaguars are on coast. I think the default is brake, so perhaps there is a problem with back EMF. That would probably be at least worthwhile data to collect.