I'll try to keep this simple, there's been a few topics up here about this:
Pro Victor:
1. Will pretty much provide power till they burn out.
2. Smaller footprint than Jaguar.
3. Graceful recovery from brownout.
4. Their PCBs are sealed against SWARF!
Con Victor:
A. No warning about faults.
B. Response time could be longer (depends on what you actually do with it).
C. PWM connectors can slip out if you don't hot glue.
Pro Jaguar:
1. Response time could be faster (depends on what you actually do with it).
2. I/O on the electronic motor control means some self-control.
3. Limits currents before breaker at fixed limits.
4. Built-in ideal PID (not ubiquitous in application).
5. Might need to buy the 2CAN under the right circumstances (the folks that make the 2CAN are really...really...supportive).
Con Jaguar:
A. FIRST has an RFQ posted to find someone to keep making them.
B. Limits currents before breaker at fixed limits.
C. Built-in ideal PID isn't always useful.
D. Sensitive to noise on encoders in some cases.
E. No ability to override the functions within it's FRC firmware.
F. CAN bus may be just as much wire, and it's a single point of failure.
G. Might need to buy the 2CAN under some circumstances (adds cost and parts).
H. Brownouts can be complicated and time consuming to recover.
I. Brownouts loose incremental encoder counts and might loose absolute encoder counts if the dead time is long enough.
J. RS232 - CAN bridge can be swamped.
K. Cables can be tricky to make, LinuxBoy is working on selling a nice little CAN terminator.
L. Some new Jaguars have manufacturing issues with the RJ connectors.
M. Beige Jaguars can melt off the current sense resistor.
N. Last years firmware could lock-up your whole robot under some conditions.
O. This years firmware could still lock-up your whole robot under a much smaller set of conditions.
P. I've seen once and heard from another mentor that there is a state you can get the Jaguar in that when FIRST disables them they go full on and stay there (oops).
Q. They have a physically larger footprint.
R. Their PCBs are generally not sealed against SWARF!
S. Do not remove the screws from the terminals...it's easy to do and can make SWARF!
T. Internal inspection is more difficult, but they are not sealed so they might need internal inspection sometimes to check for problems.
Ugh....okay that's all I can think of right now....alternates to either possibly look here:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=105531