Jaguar motor contollers stopped working

[omsahmad]

As I was trying to make the RJ12/DB9 convertor, I was putting the pins in the slots and testing to see if it worked, and on one attempt, all of my brown jaguars stopped flashing (all lights off). I checked to see if they were still getting power with a multimeter, and they were. The black jaguar is still working, and the PD board is fine. I don't think they all got fried, because it would be too random for seven motor controllers to get fried at the same time. I am using a CAN bus system and when I put a new jaguar at the end, it worked (started flashing). They don't work when I plug them into a computer either, so I couldn't update the firmware, which is a method that was supposedly supposed to work.

Thanks for any help,

Omair

[farmersvilleRob]

It's very late tonight, but I'll pass this on the my electrical engineer to get an anwser by tomorrow if no one else answers

[dyanoshak]

Originally Posted by omsahmad

As I was trying to make the RJ12/DB9 convertor, I was putting the pins in the slots and testing to see if it worked, and on one attempt, all of my brown jaguars stopped flashing (all lights off). I checked to see if they were still getting power with a multimeter, and they were. The black jaguar is still working, and the PD board is fine. I don't think they all got fried, because it would be too random for seven motor controllers to get fried at the same time. I am using a CAN bus system and when I put a new jaguar at the end, it worked (started flashing). They don't work when I plug them into a computer either, so I couldn't update the firmware, which is a method that was supposedly supposed to work.

Thanks for any help,

Omair

You're right, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that they all had their own internal failure at the exact same time.

Can you elaborate on your setup a little more? Had you powered them up before and had they worked?

Were they on and flashing and failed as soon as you plugged the adapter into your computer?

Double check that they weren't connected to power in the reverse polarity. A photo of your setup may help. Are you using ring terminals or forks?

Any detail helps.

-David

[Anupam Goli]

The only thing I could see from the description is potentially your CAN wires aren't going to the correct pins, or you may have forgotten your terminator end. I've never seen this happen, but if you can give more info, I'll try and re create it and see what happened.

[djdaugherty]

Our software/electric team told me that they can't mix the black jags and the grey jags when using CAN.... If that's not true, I'd like to know, because the team just invested some bucks in more black jags! It sounds like you were using a mix of black and grey with CAN and they worked at some point, is that true?

[dyanoshak]

Originally Posted by djdaugherty

Our software/electric team told me that they can't mix the black jags and the grey jags when using CAN.... If that's not true, I'd like to know, because the team just invested some bucks in more black jags! It sounds like you were using a mix of black and grey with CAN and they worked at some point, is that true?

There is no reason you could not use both grey and black Jaguars on your CAN bus.

[Phalanx]

Originally Posted by djdaugherty

Our software/electric team told me that they can't mix the black jags and the grey jags when using CAN.... If that's not true, I'd like to know, because the team just invested some bucks in more black jags! It sounds like you were using a mix of black and grey with CAN and they worked at some point, is that true?

While you can in fact mix BLACK & GREY Jaguars on the same CAN bus, I personally would put all the GREY JAGS in a storage closet for use only in prototyping or an emergency fix where a BLACK JAG wasn't available.

The initial GREY JAGS had several issues, burn outs, melt downs and the like and I wouldn't trust them for use on a competition bot unless I was desperate.

[omsahmad]

So here is what happened. I had a fully functioning robot, with all motor controllers working. While the robot was one, I tried putting the pins of the female DB-9 into the ports of the cRIO. I tried to enable the robot and noticed none of the motors worked. I am not sure when they all stopped flashing.

A quick thing I just realized is when I turn the robot ON, the brown jaguars that went out flash once before stopping again. If I continue to add different brown jaguars to the end of of the CAN bus, they work.

Thanks for any help,

Omair

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by omsahmad

While the robot was one, I tried putting the pins of the female DB-9 into the ports of the cRIO.

This sentence confuses me greatly. Female connectors do not have pins that go into anything, and I know of only one cRIO port that can accept a DB9 connector. Can you rephrase it, or perhaps draw a picture of what you mean?

A photo or two of your wiring would help greatly in our attempt to help troubleshoot what's going on.

[MaxMax161]

Originally Posted by djdaugherty

Our software/electric team told me that they can't mix the black jags and the grey jags when using CAN.

Originally Posted by dyanoshak

There is no reason you could not use both grey and black Jaguars on your CAN bus.

I can confirm that you can use both black and tan jags on a CAN network, in fact I did it yesterday. However if you're using serial based CAN (if you didn't pay $200 then you are) a black jag needs to be the first one connected as the tan ones do not have a serial bus. After the first black one they can be any color in the rainbow in any order, as long as it's black or tan.

[omsahmad]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

This sentence confuses me greatly. Female connectors do not have pins that go into anything, and I know of only one cRIO port that can accept a DB9 connector. Can you rephrase it, or perhaps draw a picture of what you mean?

A photo or two of your wiring would help greatly in our attempt to help troubleshoot what's going on.

I'll put up a photo soon.

So for starters, I realized I was doing this all wrong, but I was taking the connectors from inside the RJ12/DB9 convertor and putting them into the pins of the cRIO. I was referring to the the fact that the convertor is a female convertor.

The robot was on, and I did connect the pins incorrectly, so that might have killed it. But I don't think that would short all of the brown motor controllers, and NOT short the black one.

I hope this helps to clear up any confusion.

Thanks,

Omair