Talons, Jaguars and Victors - where do you stand?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Wiifi

...we will never be using Jaguars again, at the competition we ended up replacing all of our jags with victors as the jags kept failing.

Are these the old design Jags from Luminary and/or Texas Instruments? Or are you talking about the improved design (conformal-coated PCB) from Vex?

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Ether

Are these the old design Jags from Luminary and/or Texas Instruments? Or are you talking about the improved design (conformal-coated PCB) from Vex?

They are all pre-2013, we have some VEX jags from the PDV but we have not used them.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Wiifi

They are all pre-2013, we have some VEX jags from the PDV but we have not used them.

It's important to make that distinction. VEX has invested a lot of time and money, and worked very hard to improve the Jag.

[ehochstein]

Originally Posted by Ether

It's important to make that distinction. VEX has invested a lot of time and money, and worked very hard to improve the Jag.

Thank you for the suggestion, we were originally going to use the new jags on the robot but we had a few problems with our PDV. They ended up arriving after we had installed the bulk of our electrical system and we never got around to replacing them.

We are currently two motor controllers short on our robot, I'll see if I can convince the kids to put the new jags on. Are the changes documented anywhere?

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Wiifi

Are the changes documented anywhere?

I provided a link in an earlier post.

[Jared Russell]

We used 888s because we got shut out from Talons (FIRST Choice debacle then out of stock right before we ordered).

I have nothing bad to say about the 888s, other than I still hate the finicky PWM connectors.

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by Ether

The "standard" update rate of the Talon driver in WPILib is 10ms not 5.

At least it is in the 12/20/2012 version of Talon.java.

Interesting.

I assumed that since Mike Copioli said the Talon would accept a PWM to something around 3ms that it was set in the WPIlib to 5.05ms (1 DIO loop frequency)

I set ours to 1 DIO loop frequency (5.05ms) and have no issues, not even with practice bot Victors using the Talon output scaling and pulse period of 5.05ms. I'm not entirely sure why the output frequency was ever set to 2 DIO loops (10.1ms) to begin with, or why the DIO loop is 5.05ms instead of 5ms or something even faster.

[sanddrag]

Accidentally applied unregulated 12V to the output of a Talon, nothing happened. Eight Talons on each of two robots. We're happy with them.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by apalrd

Interesting.

I assumed that since Mike Copioli said the Talon would accept a PWM to something around 3ms that it was set in the WPIlib to 5.05ms (1 DIO loop frequency)

I set ours to 1 DIO loop frequency (5.05ms) and have no issues, not even with practice bot Victors using the Talon output scaling and pulse period of 5.05ms. I'm not entirely sure why the output frequency was ever set to 2 DIO loops (10.1ms) to begin with, or why the DIO loop is 5.05ms instead of 5ms or something even faster.

I am going from memory, I don't have the WPILibJ in front of me, but as I recall there were notes on the PWM class about compatability across all PWM devices (servos as well as motor controllers). The 5.05 results from a base rate in microseconds in the 6us range, times 770 or so. The particular devices get a multiplier of the 5.05ms and Victors and Talons were 2x (10.1ms) and Jags 1x. This is in the latest update of the Java libraries, but again its from memory, so check the PWM class to be sure.

In keeping with the original question: We used 8 talons and 2 jaguars. The jags were applied where we wanted HW limit switches.

We have did lose one talon during the season, the one controlling the front wheel of our shooter.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by omalleyj

We ...did lose one talon during the season, the one controlling the front wheel of our shooter.

What speed control algorithm were you using?

Did anyone else have a Talon failure while using it to control a shooter motor?

[JamesTerm]

Originally Posted by Michael Blake

We used the new Victor 888's _exclusively_ and are _very_ pleased with their performance.

Not so pleased with _our_ performance this season, but the Victors played no role in that.

We'll continue using Victor 888's in future seasons.

--Michael Blake

We did have to calibrate several of them though... it is hard to say though how much of an improvement that was if any at all. As far as I could tell, it just confirmed full power on the LED feedback, where before it didn't.

The other minor issue is that it seems like it requires a special skill to connect the pwm's into the victors correctly to make them stop blinking.

[omalleyj]

Originally Posted by Ether

What speed control algorithm were you using?

Did anyone else have a Talon failure while using it to control a shooter motor?

No feedback at all, we found the frisbees flight was not very speed sensitive. We used light wheels that recover quickly. The rear motor was set to 70% and the front to 100%. There was a 1.75 second delay between shots to allow recovery.

Motors are mini CIMs, banebots wheels (orange tread), about 3/4" compression.

[peirvine]

2175 has never really liked the Jaguars very much. They are big, and we have had sever release their magic smoke on us. In 2012 we decided to try Victors and loved them. They were smaller and simpler and worked 100% of the time. This year - 2013 - we decided to try the new Talons. We loved them even more and are planning on going with them next year. They are even smaller than the Victors and have no need for a fan. We still put fans on our drive Talons but that was because a team member touched them and overreacted... If we had to rate our order of choice for speed controllers it would be:
1) Talons
2) Victors
3) Jags

[Teamcodeorange]

Talons 100%. Our design did not call for electronics space (oops) so we had a very hard time fitting all the components. Talons saved us. We were forced to fit 9 talons in a 6"x8.5" space. None of them have failed, amazing.

[ttallo]

this year 230 went with talons. We always used victors but we tried something new. We never had a problem with them overheating or anything else, without their small foot print our electrical board wouldn't have worked either.