Which speed controllers are you using this year?

[Jared Russell]

I am asking this purely out of curiosity. The Victors are tried and true, but the Jaguars are the new kid on the block with cool features like CAN (but will they hold up in a high-current carpet game?)

[Josh Fox]

Team RUSH is using all Jaguars again, just like last year.

We're using a combination of PWM control for most robot functions and CAN for our elevation mechanism.

[ADZDEBLICK]

we'll be using all vics on our practice bot and a combination of vics and jags (space permitting) on our comp bot

[JewishDan18]

jags (all on CAN) on everything but the rollers

[viper110110]

We were gonna go all Jags, for which we have 5, but one of them died so we will be using a victor somewhere.

[Joohoo]

Originally Posted by FoXy92

Team RUSH is using all Jaguars again, just like last year.

We're using a combination of PWM control for most robot functions and CAN for our elevation mechanism.

you might want to convert them all to one or the other check out <R63>

EDIT: forget that above, thanks eagle and Russ for the clarification I can't believe I didn't see that Q/A


For 340 we are going with the combo of Victors and Jags. The victors, lighter, smaller, tried and true. Also with some people talking about the fans in the jaguars unseating, the removable fans on the victors might come in handy.

[Foster]

Black Jags on the 4 drive wheels, Grey Jags on the 4 steering wheels (we have a cool pivot bot) and Victors for the possessor.

We are all PWM this year since there is a mix/match of controllers. We also wanted to focus on the pivot drive, next year we can adventure into the world of CAN.

[Russ Beavis]

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread...ghlight=jaguar

[Jon Stratis]

I think the rules make the assumption (perhaps poorly) that a team will use one or the other. However, the intent of <R63> is stated in part A - each Jaguar can only use one. There are potential issues if you have both CAN and PWM hooked up at the same time (what do you do if the robot receives conflicting signals?) and FIRST wants to avoid them. There is absolutely no technical or safety reason why you couldn't use both methods on different Jaguars on the same robot - if you had 2 wired up for CAN and two wired up for PWM, it would be perfectly safe and controllable.

That being said, i would agree that there is a little ambiguity in part C, which seems to indicate that, if one Jaguar uses can, all of them must. I would recommend submitting a question on this to the GDC, and allow them to clarify the rule.

That being said, we're using Jags for our drive motors (4) and Victors for the CIM winch motor and a FP motor powering the "ball magnet". And finally two spikes for the window motors powering our kicker.

Edit: Russ seems to have beaten me to it and provided the answer. Both are allowed, so long as they aren't hooked up to the same Jaguar.

[Foster]

We are all PWM this year since there is a mix/match of controllers.

Thanks for the clarification, let me clarify my statement. From the rules and from a signal standpoint mix and match is allowed. From a team management standpoint of the electrical and programming teams, doing it ONE way is best. When it's crunch time we don't need to remember who has what, how they are connected, VI calls, etc. they are all the same - PWM.

Its part of my "KISS - Keep It Simple" rule where "Less is More".

[Phalanx]

We opted to use Victors only this year for a few different reasons..

1) Given the reliability track record of the Jaguars to date, we didn't want to risk using them. We'll wait one more season, see the results, and reevaluate our position.

2) We really needed the space this year, and the smaller foot print the Victor met that requirement. Although we could have opted for a two layer electronics layout if we really needed to.

3) We haven't had enough time to learn and explore CAN to be able exploit it's capabilities. It's on our plans for the future and off season. We think it's the way to go for the future.

[apalrd]

A combination of victors and Spikes, actually. No Jaguars at all. They aren't proven yet and they are huge.

We have Victors only on the motors that need them - CIM and F-P motors (total 6). We found that we actually didn't need speed control at all on the window motors,so they got Spikes. Our feedback algorithms work fine with Spikes, and theyre cheaper.

[spaztec]

Jaguars for drive train. Faster response time then victors.

Victors for everything else.

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by spaztec

Jaguars for drive train. Faster response time then victors...

The jaguars have a 5ms update period, the Victors have a 10ms update period. You already know that. What you didn't consider is that the radio packets come at 50hz, or every 20ms. Thus, you are updating your Jaguars with the same data 4 times before getting new data. The faster response does nothing. Plus, with all of the network delay, 5ms isnt going to do anything.

[Akash Rastogi]

Victors all the way.