It's good that this came up again since some time has pasted. For the 2010 season, our team developed a swerve 4 wheel independent drive, 4 wheel independent steering continuous rotation bot. We used the Denso window motors for the steering. We had several problems. It wasn't until the software issues were dealt with that we began to notice a problem with the window motors locking up and cutting out by the thermal protections built into the motor. We found out about the locking pins and removed them. Our steering motors were more responsive and ran cooler. Note that we were using them for positioning controlled by a PID. The window motors were driven by a Black Jag. Even with the pins removed we had intermittent shutdown issues. The problem was not full resolved until we replaced the black Jags with Victors. Since going with the Victors we have not had a problem. We still drive the bot to this day and have not had another incident. After this experience I would suggest that teams that are using window motors for a positioning application remove the locking pins and use a Victor not a Jag. For 2012 we used a window motor with the pins in for our bridge lowering mech driven by a Victor. No locking problems. The PTC thermal over load did shut down the motor when it was needed preventing the motor from releasing the magic smoke. The pin removal is not needed for ever application. However, There does seem to be a problem with the Jags. I think the high switching frequency of the Jag leads to self heating of the PTC. Also note that I believe the Jags for 2010 used locked anti phase control of the fets. The recent Jags I believe are low side switchers using sign magnitude modulation. Never tried a recent jag with a window motor. Ever team should Know of this issue so it can be dealt with if it arises. Also important since First has allowed other automotive units to be used this year. Many of the common units do have PTC protections built into the motors. The interaction of PTC's and jags should be followed and notice given if problems arise.
Link to original thread on Chief Delphi. It's rather long showing the round about discover of the problem.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=83973
Link to our team's website on the problem.
http://wiki.team1640.com/index.php?t...r_Locking_Pins