Black Jaguar RS232->CAN - anyone?

[heydowns]

We ran it with 4 Jags hooked up via CAN during the Beta test period. This was using the C++ driver, on our 2009 robot. Only 1 line of code for each Jag had to be changed (substitute constructor).

We did not get the opportunity to use it in a competition environment, however we did use it around the school. During that time, once the initial kinks were worked out to produce the driver version you are now seeing, we got stable performance with the short-term testing we were able to do.

Like any "new" technology, there's certainly a modest amount of risk involved as it is put through the paces. You'll want to weigh this against the pros of using CAN over PWM-based control.

Fortunately, if you stay away from the "advanced" features as a necessity in your robot code, changing back to PWM in the event of problems can be simple in robot program (and wiring is, of course, straightforward assuming you still have spare pwm ports and cables around).

The C++ and Java drivers are currently not as fully featured as they could be -- they presently support only the voltage-based control mode (so, same mode of control you get with pwm control) plus some of the nifty monitoring functions. I believe the LabVIEW driver is in a similar state.

I would not be surprised if these were augmented in the coming days & weeks, however.