Jaguar VS Victor
 

Now that the season is over for us, we finally got around to deciding to what to do with our robot. Long story short, we have 1 jaguar and 1 victor left. We are planning to use mecanum wheels for our drivetrain and 1 window motor or an air cannon. We want this robot to last (since it will be our school toy for many years) but Im not sure whether to buy 4 victors or 4 jaguars. I know victors are way more durable than jaguars, but im wondering if 4 jaguars would be better for use with mecanum wheels. We are using PWM to signal all of your motors.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

We used 4 victors to drive our four mecanum wheels. Don't have any problems with them.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

That also depends on what type of feed back you want from your motors, Are you using can? Either way as far as efficiency they both are the same just a jag is smarter than a victor.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

Started the season using Jaguars, CAN, and the 2CAN bus. The fatal CAN timeout error at start up got us and decided to swap to victors.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

I am totally pro victor.
They weight less
They have smaller foot print
And oh yea you don't see thread after thread on them burning out.
I really like the fact first offers both for us to use. You can never go wrong with choice.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

No, they don't chronically burn up, but I have seen a picture of a bunch of partially dissolved victors, I think it was due to loctite.

Victors, in my opinion, are the way to go if you want reliability and aren't to sure about CAN (I'm sure there is some special case in which a jaguar in pwm mode would have some advantages over a victor, ignoring the limit switch feature which is currently off-limits [pardon the pun] to pwm users) I also like the smaller size of the victors. Jaguars operating with can, on the other hand, can really streamline automation.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

I use both.

Jags with CAN for anything that needs precise control (drive and arm). I prefer the linear output curve of the Jags and you have way more feedback and control mode options. I also like CAN bus daisy chain wiring, which is a lot cleaner and way easier to make custom length cables for. Jag are more vulnerable to swarf (metal bits) destroying them, but make sure you cover them during machining and you should be fine. Also, mounting them vertically (back to back) reduces the metal shaving vulnerability and reduces the footprint on the board. We have no problems with Black Jags when we keep them free from metal shavings. Don't use Grey Jags (they aren't made any more for many reasons) on a competition bot since their U6 gate driver chip is faulty (it took a failure at Philly to finally hammer the point home buy another Black Jag to run the arm).

I use Victor for things we are running at fixed speeds (roller claw) since they are lighter & smaller. Also for all Denso windows motors if I can't convince the team to use a better motor and can't run it at full speed with a relay (window motors are not meant to run off speed controllers and they don't work well with Jags). I have had about 6-8 Victors fail over the year due mostly to metal shaving (I think). Not coincidentally they were mounted in terrible places on the robot where all the metal shaving fall. This is an important consideration when locating and covering your electrical board.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

We have have been use Victors only..
When our robots become 3 years old we remove the victors and use them on the new robot. Ya, they show a little wear, but functional there great.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

I'm solidly in the Victor camp... At the end of the day, the winning robot is always a functional, running robot...

JMHO...

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

Many regionals have Jaguar support staff but Victors don't have the same issues that require support staff.

You can usually find teams with spare Jags or Victors but if they don't then spare parts only has Jags. Getting a Jag from spare parts requires either exchanging a broken one or paying for a new one. I'm sorry I don't remember which one it is exactly now and it could change in the future. It isn't really a big deal to switch between a Jag and Victor at a competition but the change in size and weight could make a difference.

Victors are normally a bit cheaper.

A Jaguar rep I spoke with said they would be coming out with a new version soon (hopefully for next year) that would be more durable and fix some of the problems. This would also make it slightly more expensive (like a dollar or two). If you were considering going with Jaguars I would recommend that you wait to see what they come up with.

I prefer Victors but I'm a mechanical person so that extra weight, size and lack of durability that comes with the Jaguar isn't worth the extra computing power which most teams don't even use.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

Im on the victor train and probably always will be. They are liter and have a smaller footprint.

Jags are good if you use the feedback...but we have had too many problems with CAN.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

The advantages that Jags have over Victors are CAN, and linearity of the output response.

The advantages that Victors have over Jags are a long history of reliability, reasonable robustness to metal shavings, lower size and weight, and the fact that for many veteran teams there are a lot of them lying around.

We use only Victors for all of the reasons listed.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

We were burned by jags multiple times this year.

It makes troubleshooting a really hard task when jags are always susceptible to failure. The Victors in our drive never had a single issue (and the Victors we've used on the years of robots prior also had no issues). I watched a black jag go up in smoke this year for what seemed to be no apparent reason, amongst many other issues.

I think Victors will be what we use on everything from here on out.

-Brando

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

We have been using 4 jaguars leftover from 2009 and 2010 and this year after our first game we have noticed that they are going bad gradually. Luckily we had 4 brand new replacements in our crate but i am seriously wondering if i am not interested in using CAN bus at all, would victors be a better choice?
I will start a serious debate about this issue next year with my team.

Re: Jaguar VS Victor
 

this is our second year using jags exclusively, last year we had one fail this year we've had two.
all three times we opened them up and it was pretty obvious that metal had gotten inside somehow and shorted things out. but we have since found ways to address the problem
we've had good results with Jaguars, and aside from the few that fail for obvious reasons we have almost no issues with them, and i would recommend them.