New Speed Controller Announced

[AllenGregoryIV]

http://www.itnewsonline.com/showprns...p?storyid=4972

This article covers the new speed controller that will be in the 2009 Kit of Parts it looks really interesting features include current and voltage sensing.

[neoshaakti]

ah man, no Victors next year ?

[vivek16]

Freaking awesome! This means we won't end up ripping victors off of old robots.

thanks, Vivek

[AllenGregoryIV]

We may still be able to use Victors next year.

Q. Can we use existing components (like speed controllers) with the system?
A The plan is to allow teams to use existing Victors (884), Spikes, and pneumatic solenoids. A few
new options are also in the process of being tested with pricing at or below the current costs
teams incur for these items.

From the FIRST Technical Q&A

[Travis Hoffman]

I really like the feature set of these, but my primary questions are....

....how many do we get in the kit, and how much will additional units cost?

[samir13k]

Originally Posted by Travis Hoffman

I really like the feature set of these, but my primary questions are....

....how many do we get in the kit, and how much will additional units cost?

It looks like we are going to get 4 jaguar's in the kit, and their cost is 92.50 before the FIRST discount.

[samir13k]

can anyone email me a inventor file of the new jaguar?

samir13k@hotmail.com

I cant seem to find any inventor models of the new parts. I am currently working on a model of the cRio, but it will probably take me up to 2 more days.

[utlinebacker]

Hello,

This is my first post to Chief Delphi, but it is certainly an important one!

My name is Scott Emley, and I am the product marketing manager at Luminary Micro. This seems to be the highest concentration of FRC teams and mentors, so this is where I am starting on getting the word out:

Luminary Micro has partnered with Digi-Key to make available the new Jaguar (MDL-BDC) speed controller to all FRC teams! Of course, you will receive a predetermined number of Jaguar speed controllers in your KoP distribution, and this program is designed to provide FRC teams exclusive access to additional speed controllers for a >30% discount to the normal resale price. The Jaguar discount program is only available to FRC teams and only through Digi-Key by visiting: http://sales.digikey.com/dkes/FirstRoboticsCompetition.asp


To qualify for the discount, you must enter in your team information, a shipping address within the general geographical location (state/country) of your team, and you must enter a valid phone number so the FRC Order Team at Digi-Key can validate your identity and thus honor your discount request.

It is important you remember to use the Digi-Key link above – or you will be like the rest of the world and have to pay full price. Don’t be distracted because Luminary Micro has several worldwide distributors (including Digi-Key) that will be carrying the Jaguar at full price.

By the way, Luminary Micro has unveiled the Jaguar to the rest of the world as a reference design, and now is a good time to remind teams that, while you might read or realize the full potential of the Jaguar on Luminary Micro’s website, the official FRC 2009 game rules (or restrictions for that matter) have not been announced. More explicitly, I discourage you from monkeying with the firmware on the Jaguar ---- even though you might be tempted. (I'm an engineer... I understand this temptation.)

As far as documentation is concerned, I've just uploaded the first revision of the Jaguar Getting Started Guide on the Jaguar microsite at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar. I'll keep referring to this site for the latest documentation regarding the Jaguar, so I encourage you to bookmark the link.

Looking forward to supporting you guys this year.

Best Regards,
Scott

P.S. I see #47 all over the place on this forum... and I love it!

[Tristan Lall]

Scott, I've quoted your post on the FIRST Forums (http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=10418), so that teams who miss this thread will have another shot at finding the appropriate Jaguar information.

FIRST has been asking the control system beta test teams to aggregate their own information there, so it would be worth duplicating future postings on the subject to that forum as well.

[ajlapp]

I forgot to mention: I went ahead and uploaded the Jaguar's IGES file on the Jaguar microsite at http://www.luminarymicro.com/jaguar.

Any chance you can supply a complete solid model of the housing? The iges file imports as a shell which can be troublesome to work with.

Is Luminary aware that it is common for teams to purchase many of these during a season? Teams that construct 2 complete robots may purchase 10-15 of these in a single season!

If these are purchased for non-FIRST applications will their full potential be available?

Thanks.

[utlinebacker]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

Any chance you can supply a complete solid model of the housing? The iges file imports as a shell which can be troublesome to work with.

Is Luminary aware that it is common for teams to purchase many of these during a season? Teams that construct 2 complete robots may purchase 10-15 of these in a single season!

If these are purchased for non-FIRST applications will their full potential be available?

Thanks.

Unfortunately, I cannot supply a complete solid model at this time.

As for non-FRC apps, the full "raw potential" of the Jaguar is available. The short version of the story: you need CAN to enable Jaguar's non-FRC2009 features and we purposely stunted the Jaguar's CAN API development until after FRC2009 (for the purpose of FRC2009). So, the full potential is available, but the method to unleash these features (CAN) is purposely not yet so easy to use that a marketer like me could do it.

(Did I just cut myself down?)

Regards,
Scott

[waialua359]

Can someone confirm that the jaguar sold by Digikey is in fact the ones we can order already in advance for this year's game? I couldnt find the post of the vendors, if I recall, that either offered them or had them at a discount.
Sorry, dont want to read 100+ posts to maybe find the info here.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Can someone confirm that the jaguar sold by Digikey is in fact the ones we can order already in advance for this year's game? I couldnt find the post of the vendors, if I recall, that either offered them or had them at a discount.
Sorry, dont want to read 100+ posts to maybe find the info here.

Here you go. http://sales.digikey.com/dkes/FirstR...ompetition.asp

From post #102. It took me two minutes to find it.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by billbo911

Here you go. http://sales.digikey.com/dkes/FirstR...ompetition.asp

From post #102. It took me two minutes to find it.

thanks for saving me the trouble.

[Richard McClellan]

According to the Getting Started guide, it is recommended to have 1/2" of empty space on the left and right side of each Jaguar speed controller. If you were to mount two Jaguars with their sides adjacent to each other, can this 1/2" space overlap, or would you need a total of 1" of space in between the two?