Jaguars, what can we use in FIRST 2010?

[Joe Johnson]

Will someone please have mercy on an old Mechanical Engineer? I have searched ChiefDelphi.com. I have done my best to look at the Luminary Micro site. In desperation, I've even tried to read the FIRST Manual!!! But all to no avail.

I have what I think is a simple question: Among the bewildering array of functions that the Jaguars can perform, which ones are legal and available to FIRST teams in 2010?

I understand that we can use CAN. Fair enough. But I don't know if all the features that are available via CAN are available to us. I am sure that this is available somewhere, but I'll be dag nabbed if I can find it. I was like Alice in Wonderland, chasing rabbits down holes trying to find it. I just kept seeing a cat's smile floating in space (was the cat a Jaguar? Who can say).

Seriously though, I just want to know if I can access the motor current feature. I would love to have that information without having to do anything other than asking the Jaguar what the current is (or rather, just listening as it tells me).

The reason I ask is that I want my controller guys to monitor motor speed for one of the actuators I am designing. I don't want to have to bother with an encoder if I don't have to. If I can get motor current for free (basically) then I can do a simple calculation (involving the current battery voltage, the PWM value of the Jaguar and the stall & free current of the motor I am driving) to get a pretty darn good estimate of the motor speed.

And it is essentially free (software is free, all ME's know that ;-)

But, is it legal and available to FIRST teams in 2010?

Please help.

Joe J.

P.S. If there isn't a white paper with the following title, there should be: "How to gain a competitive advantage by using the cool features of a Jaguar on a 2010 FIRST robot"

By the way, that paper is worth something in the high six figures in added sales to Luminary Micro. If they were smart they'd hire me to write it for them ;-)