Jaguars vs Victors

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

GAHHH!!!!

Jaguars are 4 years old now and they are still so fragile?

We are having fits with the Jaguars. I have been attributing them to some CAN related collateral damage but after reading this thread, I am starting to think that Jaguars are just not safe to use. Seriously.

I do not want my speed controllers "protecting" me by shutting themselves off. If they can't take the heat get the heck out of the FRC kitchen!

This is killing us.

I will have some choice words for FIRST Engineering after the season but man oh man has FIRST a lot of 'spainin' to do...

Joe J.

Dr Joe,

The Jags aren't as fragile as some put them out to be. Here in FIRST we tend to ABUSE speed controllers rather than use them.

That being said, there are a few areas where the Jags need to be made better:
1> CAN control -- The Can-bus and its related connectors tend to be ... touchy. A better positive lock and more robust pin setup would help things immensly.

2> Failure reporting -- The Jag has plenty of processing power. It needs to report exactly what the failure is, not just a flashing LED, so that our control system may deal with said failure.

3> For some reason the Jag seems to be a swarf magnet. Possibly adding a filter to the air intakes would help.

4> Protection from reverse power and reversed input/output. At least create connections that are physically different so that you cannot reverse input and outout wires ... and somehow protext from reversed input power (I havent looked at the schematic to determine an easy one here).

All this being said ... with proper care and feeding ... Jags are a good speed controller and they offer many benifits that the Victors do not.