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Unread 19-04-2012, 22:56
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Re: TI and future Jaguars

Quote:
Originally Posted by dsirovica View Post
Remember kids need to use these products, we cannot have a gazillion of modules/combinations. Today we have two: a Vic or a Jag and just these two is confusing everybody and creating a huge debate :-)
The cRIO control system and the KOP themselves are 2 examples that literally defy that point. The cRIO alone offers more variations.

Using this logic why not manufacture an integrated control system why commit to making anyone think about the details?

FIRST has a commitment to diversity in their kit of parts they made that clear in my discussion with them. To me that means that they support the idea of a community motor control even if they can source the Jaguar still.

Quote:
Vics and Jags are sub $100. There is no way one can build this for less unless you are a large volume manufacturer - way larger than the FIRST market.
Not sure how that works. You make hundreds of thousands of a single iteration product to leverage what market? How many do you make for what year and if TI could sell these why didn't they? If the problems were all software their non-FIRST firmware was utterly open so why didn't it turn big money? Also if the TI Stellaris is selling so well why the requirement to use it in the FIRST RFQ?

More importantly if the pockets on that side are so deep who insures that they don't reduce the options down to their gospel and lock out the other vendors? Please review the RFQ there's a quite specific note about that towards the end obviously because often such deep pocket interests don't have an interest in co-existence but market dominance.

Something like earlier you wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsirovica View Post
The volume of FIRST is small. But the 12/24V 20-60A segment has got to be huge...
Quote:
Vics and (to a much lesser extent) Jags have had multiple generations of fine tuning. If we design our onw in the next few months - will it work just fine ???
Depends on your goals and the way it's managed. I have little doubt we can build a power H-bridge module properly. I have little doubt we can build a functional PWM module. I have little doubt we can build a CAN module. As others and myself have stated we already built designs for a CAN enabled motor control. Mine are modular already to a point and for several good technical reasons including insuring that the power and ground planes of the control section are not the power and ground planes of the H-bridge section. Years of experience have taught me the issues of that...I don't buy into the whole if we only are very careful in the layout nothing could go wrong.

I have some doubts we can build a perfectly operational PID implementation unless we mimic the ideal PID loop of the Jaguar. However, we can not ignore that the ideal PID loop of the Jaguar (even when it's implemented properly) is not the only form of PID loop and it doesn't work perfectly in all applications. I'm not sure I want to do what the Jaguar PR does in effect and claim that we are providing you 'the PID loop' of choice. As many have found it's just not adequate in many situations.

I already stated clearly that as I don't feel this is designed to force the market closed on the Jaguar, there is no absolute need to finish before next season it would be fine to finish the season after. As far as bugs, you will quickly find that you have bigger problems then you think with the Jaguar no matter how deep your pockets. Let the community project worry about what it needs to worry about, we already saw what big companies did with the Jaguar who is to say what the community project does...it's without precident for an electronic motor control (but AndyMark and others prove that it can be done as a business).

The Jaguars made little effort to show how they fit into the target market. A fair representation of their upsides and downsides was left to the community. To some extent telling people to read the manual is a learning exercise. When it exceeds the content of the manual then it's reverse engineering with no evidence you can forward port it to the product. If you argue that you support reverse engineering you're defying the even playing field goals of FIRST. Many teams can't even solder. Now you ask them to troubleshoot this? That's one of the reasons more veteran teams use the Jaguars with CAN than the newer teams.

The community project isn't going to be locked out of testing anything, to changing anything, the quantities will be smaller and every step of the design process there to review. A very large company generally does not have any interest in finding faults in their very expensive by quantity product. They also have little interest in creating diversity. If you knock out a few hundred thousand of those Jaguar PCBs right now I'm quite sure you'll be making an error if your goal is to remove the problems.

On the plus side if you provide the Jaguar to FIRST you only reduce the initial burden on the community project.

Quote:
I think some vendor needs their arm twisted to take the donated IP of the Jag and improve on it in an incremental fashion. We've all witnessed some really good suggestins on how improve a Jag. With some of these implemented I think the new Jag will be a fine product for FIRST.
I support this. If you can find someone and a way to do that feel free. You have the RFQ and obviously the interest of FIRST because they published it. I made it extremely clear earlier in this topic that whether or not they fulfill that RFQ I am doing this as a community effort. I feel I also made that extremely clear to FIRST and the people I spoke to were thrilled with the idea.

My goal isn't to harm the Jaguar. My goal is to do something I feel is very important to the longevity of FIRST. To find a way to navigate to community solutions from FIRST itself and put those up against the other options. What I have to wonder is: why would you even need the community if all the bugs are well known already here? Why would the massively deep pocketed company not just offer it's service to FIRST, absorb, collate the information and manufacture? What does the community need to do if the bugs are already so fleshed out?

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This is not rocket science and it doesn't evolve much anymore, so we just need a stable product and ride down the cost curve asap. I can imagine the New-Jag in a Vic format for < $50.
Feel free to find vendor that can hit that price point. I'll be very happy to produce a electronic motor control in the sub-$100 range with specific options. I think a community such as FIRST will value it more than a few bucks here and there. The mere costs of single competition, the costs of the cRIO, the costs of the network cameras. If you note the FIRST community often makes decisions that aren't based on the price point. Though I welcome a solution in that price range if it can be achieved to help those teams with a lower budget. The lower you make your price the easier you make it on the community project because the less demand for the product to fill the lowest price point. In effect, we can charge reasonably more because the Jaguar already has earned itself a reputation and more importantly it will cost you *much* more to compete on feature than a community project.

Quote:
What our community effort can do is to act as an advisor to the benevolent manufacturer. Maybe FIRST can orchestrate this and there ought to be prizes and recognition for those that contribute a lot.

Dean
Contact them you have the RFQ. Only FIRST knows what FIRST will approve for that sort of thing. However I suspect you'll have to get the funds for those prizes from the manufacturer.

You might even get some flexibility from FIRST about that RFQ's demands. Course you've sort of stuck them with the TI Stellaris, the cases, and to some extents the current limits. Wait why did the last benevolent manufacturer leave behind a requirement in a FIRST RFQ?

Last edited by techhelpbb : 20-04-2012 at 13:57.
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