Jaguars vs Victors

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Levansic

I don't understand all of the negative feelings about the Jaguars, vs. the Victors. The Jaguars are very adequate for a properly designed electromechanical system. If the jaguars are too "weak", then you're doing it wrong.

A properly designed electromechanical system, yes, but let's face it - how many of us really get a chance to properly design and iron out every kink of our robot? The fact that designs need to iterated and constantly improved forces us to abuse our robots and consequently crash the Jaguars.

That being said, there are numerous reasons - somewhat attributable to poor design - that Jaguars are considered less robust than Victors. Their 40A overcurrent protection, for instance, may be a nice safety feature, but it's a frequent source of frustration for teams who find that their application may occasionally necessitate current spikes above 40A. Quality control on the physical RJ11 and RJ12 jacks has also been documented to be subpar. CAN issues - both on the electrical and software sides - have been linked to fundamental limitations of and problems with the involved hardware that aren't made explicit to users.

Long story short, it isn't just poor design that generated the "Victors for reliability, Jaguars for features" mantra.

Originally Posted by dsirovica

A related Q: we found that when a Jag stalls at full power it will cut out and also crash the cRio - have others had that experience?

That's extraordinarily unlikely. If anything, the Jaguar's built in overcurrent protection should be preventing such a crash. The 24V power supply can handle voltage dips to 4.5V. If your battery voltage is low enough for one 40A draw to sink it below that level, then you need a new battery.