Quote:
Originally Posted by cbale2000
I'm of the strong opinion that unless you're using CAN, the answer to virtually every "problem with Jaguars" thread should simply be: "Don't use Jags".
They're so much more trouble than their worth, and unless you're using CAN, they provide virtually zero benefit over Talons or Victors (and they take up more space and fail FAR more often).
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I don't know if that's fair. I'm not saying that isn't correct, but I don't think it's necessarily "fair". The Jag wasn't specifically designed for FIRST applications, it was designed for broad use/appeal (but I'd assume its 90% use-case has been in FIRST Robotics).
We've had about even odds that a Victor or Jag would fail on us in a given situation (though to be fair the Victors were twice as old), but pretty much all of them were our fault (metal shavings in the device, reverse-driving the controller, etc.). We've only used Talons one season, and we had a bunch of Jags leftover from previous seasons so we used those this year. That's where we ran into the "not specifically designed for FIRST applications" wall.
But the Jag has some very useful features, the primary one we use is the built-in limit switch connectors. Ramping is another very nice feature I wish other speed controllers had. CAN is another one, I guess, but we've not gone a full season without having CAN issues appear in FRC so I've not allowed my team to use CAN yet. Keeping my fingers crossed for the roboRIO.
The design of the Jag seems more geared towards hobbyists or those who would write their own firmware for the device. It doesn't seem like it was really meant specifically for FIRST.
-Danny