Jaguar VS Victor

[wiiking123]

Now that the season is over for us, we finally got around to deciding to what to do with our robot. Long story short, we have 1 jaguar and 1 victor left. We are planning to use mecanum wheels for our drivetrain and 1 window motor or an air cannon. We want this robot to last (since it will be our school toy for many years) but Im not sure whether to buy 4 victors or 4 jaguars. I know victors are way more durable than jaguars, but im wondering if 4 jaguars would be better for use with mecanum wheels. We are using PWM to signal all of your motors.

[mikets]

We used 4 victors to drive our four mecanum wheels. Don't have any problems with them.

[Blackphantom91]

That also depends on what type of feed back you want from your motors, Are you using can? Either way as far as efficiency they both are the same just a jag is smarter than a victor.

[MagiChau]

Started the season using Jaguars, CAN, and the 2CAN bus. The fatal CAN timeout error at start up got us and decided to swap to victors.

[nuggetsyl]

I am totally pro victor.
They weight less
They have smaller foot print
And oh yea you don't see thread after thread on them burning out.
I really like the fact first offers both for us to use. You can never go wrong with choice.

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by nuggetsyl

I am totally pro victor.
They weight less
They have smaller foot print
And oh yea you don't see thread after thread on them burning out.
I really like the fact first offers both for us to use. You can never go wrong with choice.

No, they don't chronically burn up, but I have seen a picture of a bunch of partially dissolved victors, I think it was due to loctite.

Victors, in my opinion, are the way to go if you want reliability and aren't to sure about CAN (I'm sure there is some special case in which a jaguar in pwm mode would have some advantages over a victor, ignoring the limit switch feature which is currently off-limits [pardon the pun] to pwm users) I also like the smaller size of the victors. Jaguars operating with can, on the other hand, can really streamline automation.

[The Lucas]

I use both.

Jags with CAN for anything that needs precise control (drive and arm). I prefer the linear output curve of the Jags and you have way more feedback and control mode options. I also like CAN bus daisy chain wiring, which is a lot cleaner and way easier to make custom length cables for. Jag are more vulnerable to swarf (metal bits) destroying them, but make sure you cover them during machining and you should be fine. Also, mounting them vertically (back to back) reduces the metal shaving vulnerability and reduces the footprint on the board. We have no problems with Black Jags when we keep them free from metal shavings. Don't use Grey Jags (they aren't made any more for many reasons) on a competition bot since their U6 gate driver chip is faulty (it took a failure at Philly to finally hammer the point home buy another Black Jag to run the arm).

I use Victor for things we are running at fixed speeds (roller claw) since they are lighter & smaller. Also for all Denso windows motors if I can't convince the team to use a better motor and can't run it at full speed with a relay (window motors are not meant to run off speed controllers and they don't work well with Jags). I have had about 6-8 Victors fail over the year due mostly to metal shaving (I think). Not coincidentally they were mounted in terrible places on the robot where all the metal shaving fall. This is an important consideration when locating and covering your electrical board.

[DarrinMunter]

We have have been use Victors only..
When our robots become 3 years old we remove the victors and use them on the new robot. Ya, they show a little wear, but functional there great.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by PAR_WIG1350

I'm sure there is some special case in which a jaguar in pwm mode would have some advantages over a victor

One special case I can think of: When operating at stall, a Jaguar tends to heat up the motor a bit less than a Vic, for the same torque output.

[mikets]

This year, we are trying Jaguars and CAN bus because we are quickly running out of digital I/O channels with all the encoders (encoders can directly connect to the Jags). It sure does clean up our wiring. See my pictures on this thread (http://chiefdelphi.com/forums/showth...t=99554&page=2).
However, while making the Jags to work with the code, one of the brand new Jag is already malfunctioning. I don't know what happened. Here is the sequence of events:
- We have 4 Black Jaguars driving a mecanum wheel set.
- Flashed the latest firmware to all the Jags and the 2CAN.
- Successfully assigning IDs and running each individual motors by using the bdc-comm tool.
- We have four encoders (one for each motor), but for some reasons all the encoders are not working (could be because of the new way we connect them). We are still investigating it.
- While testing different modes of the Jags, one of them died. The status LED goes dark even though I have power to it. After replacing the dead jag and some tweaking around with the code, the robot now runs teleop fine.

Since this is a brand new Jag, is it under warranty? How would I send it back for repair?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by mikets

Since this is a brand new Jag, is it under warranty? How would I send it back for repair?

There is a link to RMA information at http://www.ti.com/jaguar

[~Cory~]

I just want to throw this into the mix:

Pro Jag (black)

The 2Can controller is awesome. Nothing beats remotely a remote user panel to debug/modify. And it saves wiring space by having the the 2can-crio connection over Ethernet.

[Bryscus]

Originally Posted by ~Cory~

I just want to throw this into the mix:

Pro Jag (black)

The 2Can controller is awesome. Nothing beats remotely a remote user panel to debug/modify. And it saves wiring space by having the the 2can-crio connection over Ethernet.

I'd be all over the 2CAN interface, but I just can't justify the $200 item (PER ROBOT if you keep them around) when there is a $2 option that just happens to run 4 times slower. I haven't run into a situation where we've been limited by the bandwidth (yet).

Originally Posted by BAM

If your using PWM, Victors are your best bet. I've used both for years, and based on what you've said, Victors seem to be right for you. Jaguars only advantage is that they can run Can. Can will give you better feedback (Voltage/current/other), but are bigger, and less durable. Based on you saying "School TOY", I'm assuming this robot is in for a long life full of those autonomous mishaps that send your robot full speed into a wall. Victors will be able to take that abuse, while jags will not (Trust me, after testing, we used victors in our 120lbs battlebot). Hope this helps

While CAN is a nice interface that simplifies wiring, that's only one small benefit for the Jags. The BIGGEST improvement is minor loop control capabilities. Imagine driving to speed during the competition and then switching over to position mode to give you the ability to accurately traverse a specific distance.

While the Jags are fairly rugged, we had some issues last year with a couple of them. I'm of the opinion however, that the mechanical guys killed them with aluminum filings... If you're careful though, they work just fine.

- Bryce

[Mike Betts]

I'm solidly in the Victor camp... At the end of the day, the winning robot is always a functional, running robot...

JMHO...

[hallk]

Many regionals have Jaguar support staff but Victors don't have the same issues that require support staff.

You can usually find teams with spare Jags or Victors but if they don't then spare parts only has Jags. Getting a Jag from spare parts requires either exchanging a broken one or paying for a new one. I'm sorry I don't remember which one it is exactly now and it could change in the future. It isn't really a big deal to switch between a Jag and Victor at a competition but the change in size and weight could make a difference.

Victors are normally a bit cheaper.

A Jaguar rep I spoke with said they would be coming out with a new version soon (hopefully for next year) that would be more durable and fix some of the problems. This would also make it slightly more expensive (like a dollar or two). If you were considering going with Jaguars I would recommend that you wait to see what they come up with.

I prefer Victors but I'm a mechanical person so that extra weight, size and lack of durability that comes with the Jaguar isn't worth the extra computing power which most teams don't even use.