Jaguar Failure

[Jon236]

Has any team experienced a Jaguar failure (other than losing magical smoke)? I had many hours with the benchtop system up-and-operating and then the LED suddenly failed (as well as the output voltage). It was powered in the proper way (12 v battery through the PDB).

[Lowfategg]

Just wondering how did it fail? Under heavy loads, or it just fried.

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by Lowfategg

Just wondering how did it fail? Under heavy loads, or it just fried.

No load other than a van door motor (itself not loaded). No magic smoke. Autopsy revealed no carbon.

[EricVanWyk]

Are the limit switch jumpers still installed?

[DonRotolo]

Jaguars, like Victors, are sensitive to metal bits inside; they are somewhat more difficult to clean out though.

[Jon236]

Originally Posted by EricVanWyk

Are the limit switch jumpers still installed?

Yes.......and no metal bits inside

[Mike Copioli]

We experienced a failure on two of our jags. Visit the link below. It is a large file.. about 20 meg so be patient. During the test both the victor and the jag are receiving the same signal. Power was applied to all three devices simultaneously. The two jags LEDs were both solid red and nonresponsive. The victor was still functional. The problem was repeatable by cycling power.

http://www.crosstheroadelectronics.c...uarFailure.avi

[Lowfategg]

This is a bit worrying. Are they going to fix it or has someone informed FIRST of the problem?

[billbo911]

Just wondering if there has been any new information on this. Was a cause of the failure found? A solution? Anything?

[meastman]

I was hoping that the jaguars would not fail easily. Last year we had to replace quite a few blown victors.

[Mike Copioli]

I am not certain of the cause. It appears to be a power-up issue. The Jags became nonresponsive (solid red LED as seen in the video) when power was cycled(applied then removed repeatedly). Here is my theory as to why. The Jag I believe uses an ARM processor. My experience with ARM chips is that they require more time to stabilize than most processors upon intial powerup. They have seperate voltages for the core and peripherals. The lock up could be caused from a timing issue between powering the core and peripherals. Again this is pure speculation. I am basing this on similar experiences with the Chicklet which also uses an ARM processor. Whatever the cause may be I hope FIRST addresses this issue prior to Kickoff.

They Jag seems like a very promising speed controller. It has great low-speed control and fast response. It supports CAN and can decode quadrature. All of this functionality is great but if the device locks up and causes a team to lose just one match, then as far as I am concerned the device is as good as garbage.

[wilsonmw04]

So, are these Jags now fancy paper weights? When I hear the term "locked up" when it comes to electronics i make the assumption that you can power the item down and restart it and it will work normally.

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Mike Copioli

I am not certain of the cause. It appears to be a power-up issue. The Jags became nonresponsive (solid red LED as seen in the video) when power was cycled(applied then removed repeatedly). Here is my theory as to why. The Jag I believe uses an ARM processor. My experience with ARM chips is that they require more time to stabilize than most processors upon intial powerup. They have seperate voltages for the core and peripherals. The lock up could be caused from a timing issue between powering the core and peripherals. Again this is pure speculation. I am basing this on similar experiences with the Chicklet which also uses an ARM processor. Whatever the cause may be I hope FIRST addresses this issue prior to Kickoff.

They Jag seems like a very promising speed controller. It has great low-speed control and fast response. It supports CAN and can decode quadrature. All of this functionality is great but if the device locks up and causes a team to lose just one match, then as far as I am concerned the device is as good as garbage.

Have these failures been reported to FIRST and Luminary Micro?? These units are so new, you won't find much help here. I suggest you go to the source.