I hate Jaguars!!!
 

We have had trouble in the past (in 2009) having Jaguars burn out on us. We used Victors last year because of this. This year, we put the Jaguars that came in the KoP on the robot, and today, one of them gave out!! Why do they give out like that? Are they just junky, or is there something wrong with the way we have them connected? Is anyone else having trouble with the Jaguars this year?

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

We've used Jags since the first year we had them. We've only had one go down on use the first year and have been using the others consistently(3 years now) since. We bought 4 new "black" jags this year for our 'bot. The only thing that I don't like about them is the fit of the PWM's. They slide out way too easily. I'm used to a more snug fit guess. We hope that using the plastic wire tab on the side will keep them in place.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

we have 20 jags and none have gone yet :)

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

my current team had a box 3 bad jags. when I was done (opening and removing metal bits), the box was empty. all 3 ran fine after a cleaning.

make sure that you didn't get any metal shavings in there...

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

Metal shavings are a big thing that cause them to go out. My team has broken at least 8 however we have an electrical engineer that has replaced a few transistors and they work now. Although we can't use them in competition (because they have been modified) they are perfect for use on our practice bots

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

As long as he replaced the FETs with like parts (same part number), that's a repair, not a modification. I wouldn't think there would be a problem with that. I've repaired both Spikes and Victors in the past.

On another note, We've had our share of problems with the Jaguars. They don't seem to be as "Hardened" as the Victors. Static seems to be the vulnerability.

Steve

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

Yea, I hate jags too. Dealing with them in the pit in 2009 was so annoying we switched our (quite literally) destroyed jag with victors. Our current setup will be 2 "black jags" (nicknamed by myself and a friend "Panthers") and 5 victors.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

Love the capability! hate the reliability.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

The rules this year do not make any distinction between a repair and a modification of a control system component. Any disassembly is illegal.

We've used 16 jaguars over the last 2 years with no failures. Over that same period, we've used 10 victors and had 1 failure.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

We tried out jaguars in 2009, decided we did not like them and used Victors. Then this year we decided to give those jaguars another shot. We got a shipment of the black jaguars and a fair amount of them where DOA. As if that was not bad enough one jaguar inexplicably stopped working yesterday and then at the end of our meeting a different jaguar caught fire. The jaguar glowed blue with electrical sparks and then a plume of smoke erupted from the inside. we checked the wiring to the jaguar everything was normal, our jaguar just decided it would fail catastrophically... I HATE Jaguars

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

sounds like you have a metal shaving rich environment...

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

Maybe that is the case on the jaguar that died with out warning. however the one that started smoking and catching fire was on a practice drive train where no one would have any way of getting metal shavings into it because there is nothing to work on above the jaguars. Unless one of our team members decided to sprinkle our electronics with metal shavings, I just don't see how metal shavings got into that jaguar.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

We have experienced two Jaguars show the "magic smoke" in other words burn out, we have come to figure out that Jaguars are extremely sensitive to metal shavings/ dust make sure you cover them when your drilling near or around them thats how they usually go bad.

P.S If you use CAN be careful because when one of our Jaguars burned while we drove our robot one motor kept driving even after you E-stop it we had to chase it down to turn it off luckily it was only at like 25% power.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

Since 2009 we have used about 14 jaguars and only have one fail due to the manufacturing error in 2009 their support was very good and it was replaced very quickly. We are using 5 this year with the CAN network with no issues, they are all the new black jaguar.

Re: I hate Jaguars!!!
 

This is my FIRST year mentoring the High School Level. Yesterday, BAG DAY, in the span of 3 hours, we had all FOUR of our main drive Jags fail. These were all NEW this year. When the first on failed, one of the other mentors on the team did a post mortem, and found no shavings, but the fan power cable had a not been crimped correctly, and did not complete the circuit. That fan never turned on.

Is this a global manufacturing issue, or just a infant mortality issue? We probably have less than 3 hours of run time on the bot at this point of the season.

We did not have the time to look at the other 3. We pulled the gray Jags off last years bot, and finished up drivers training prior to bagging.

Of the failed Black Jags, 2 were from the KOP, and 2 were purchased new from Digi-Key at the end of Jan. 2011.

Coach Scott
Team 2137
TORC - The Oxford RoboCats - Oxford Michigan