What do you think of the jaguars?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Before we get back into a full out war on Victor vs. Jaguar it is important to note a few things that are thrown about.
1. Both controllers at full throttle put out a constant voltage which is the battery less losses in the wiring, connectors and series resistance of the FETs in the controllers. The Jaguar FETs are a little lower but the Jaguar must switch to zero periodically to charge up the cap in the charge pump circuitry.
2. Linear? This varies with motor type and between motors of the same type. All works itself out with practice or some form of feedback.
3. Anecdotal or not, the Jaguars are seeing (at a higher rate) failures that were not seen with the Victors. They are working on it and in my opinion they are trying hard to give you a product that is reliable.
4. The output frequency of the Jaguar is 15kHz while the Victor is 150Hz. I suspect that this difference with the KOP motors is the big difference teams are seeing with output speeds.
5. The Jaguar has a current sense resistor in the negative side of the H bridge. Although low resistance (equivalent to 6" of #10 wire), it does effect the output voltage a little. This is the same resistor that the Jaguar uses for over current sense. Once reached, it takes a minimum of three seconds after the fault has been removed before the protection gives control back to the output.
6. Failures have occurred on all types of motors under all types of operation and Luminary is trying to get through all of the data and their own testing to determine where the problem is actually occurring. In spite of the years of electrical advice (mine and others), teams still manage to get conductive debris inside the controllers regardless of their manufacture. A few wayward strands of aluminum or a pile of filings will cause a FET to self destruct in a visible and noxious way. The result is usually a controller that is unrepairable.
7. At this point it seems that the greatest Jaguar failure is a controller that only produces output in one direction. If yours failed in another manner, Luminary needs to know.