19-11-2008 16:23

DavidGitz

Re: pic: Night & Day

I wonder what the difference is on the digital output of the dig. sidecar between the victor pwm VI and the jaguar pwm VI. If someone could check this with an o-scope that would be pretty cool.

19-11-2008 16:44

billbo911

Re: pic: Night & Day

I believe one difference is the Victor update (PWM Frequency) is 50 Hz as apposed to 100Hz for the Jaguar.

19-11-2008 16:49

Kingofl337

Re: pic: Night & Day

correct - update rates
Servo 20ms
Victor 10ms
Jaguar 5ms

19-11-2008 17:00

JesseK

Re: pic: Night & Day

I wonder if the Jaguar has to be calibrated like the victor. First thing we should test is if the 'neutral' of the Jaguar is truly 127. There's a 'calibrating a victor' thread around here somewhere and I won't have a chance to even ask our team to do it until Tuesday.

19-11-2008 17:35

robostangs548

Re: pic: Night & Day

Calibrate, With it's mini-computer like size, it should calibrate and program itself. LOL

19-11-2008 17:38

Nate Smith

Re: pic: Night & Day

According to Luminary Micro's getting started doc for the Jaguars, the answer is no...

19-11-2008 18:16

Joe Ross

Re: pic: Night & Day

You can see for yourself with the data posted on the official FIRST forum: http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=10182 The victor is obviously off center, while the jaguar is not.

19-11-2008 18:30

EricVanWyk

Re: pic: Night & Day

The Jaguar pulses are faster and longer, to get updates quicker with more resolution. You can also calibrate the Jaguar to the Victor pulse widths.

Remember, we are in floating point math now:
1.0 is forward
0.0 is stop
-1.0 is reverse

19-11-2008 18:53

gorrilla

Re: pic: Night & Day

so, that means we wont have any delay?(it uses wifi to communicate with the OI right? so does this mean it will have a faster reponse then the victors?)

19-11-2008 19:53

RedHeadRobotics

Re: pic: Night & Day

Looks pretty cool. I can't wait to get to try them out with the new control system

19-11-2008 21:24

waialua359

Re: pic: Night & Day

The only downfall as stated earlier is its size compared to the victors. Now that you get an actual pic side by side, that has huge ramifications on the amount of additional space you need to run them.
At least they are CHEAPER for now...........

19-11-2008 22:56

Coach Norm

Re: pic: Night & Day

The cheaper price will remain throughout the 2009 season according to Luminary Micro if you use the proper link. See post here for info: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&postcount=102

20-11-2008 01:27

R.C.

Re: pic: Night & Day

I was thinking about it, the size isn't toooo bad. Life is fun of obstacles, finding a path around them is all the fun.

20-11-2008 19:49

darkember

Re: pic: Night & Day

How much more does the Jaguar wiegh then the victor?

20-11-2008 22:06

Re: pic: Night & Day

I have to say, I'm not too thrilled about having to pack these suckers into our robot... In the past, electronics have already been a squeeze. We shall see, though.

On the plus side, it seems like it will be slightly harder for us to drop shavings and chips onto the H bridge, and fry them! This is good, because high school students seem to have an impressive ability to fry any electronic system you put in front of them...

20-11-2008 22:12

Matt382

Re: pic: Night & Day

Jaguars and Victos weigh approximately the same. I know from holding them and comparing; there is no noticable difference unless you put it on a very accurate scale.

20-11-2008 22:51

Deep Dark

Re: pic: Night & Day

I simply cannot get over the size difference. I'm really not a complainer, but having controls aspects adding more weight, and taking up more space, on the robot is not exactly something I am looking forward to. I guess we'll just need to not put as much mechanical stuff on inorder to make weight and size.

20-11-2008 23:31

synth3tk

Re: pic: Night & Day

It depends on the limits this year. I'm sure they'll take the new system into consideration when making the rules this season.

21-11-2008 00:14

Vikesrock

Re: pic: Night & Day

I have a strong feeling the limits will remain under the size of a standard door. A standard door is 36" wide and you have to leave room for the door itself and the doorstop (the thin slat that sticks out from the jamb on the side opposite the hinges). With bumpers added on each side of the 28" that was the max width last year you are already pushing up very close to that.

I suppose they could add to the length though.

21-11-2008 00:28

Andrew Schreiber

Re: pic: Night & Day

As stated earlier the new Jaguars dont weight that much more than the Victors. Size wise they may be larger but perhaps we will stop seeing the electronics being shoved in wherever they will go. We will just need to be more careful with our designing. With any luck it will FORCE teams to clean up their wiring and electrical boards.

21-11-2008 00:33

synth3tk

Re: pic: Night & Day

Oh, my bad. I misread the post. I thought he meant weight limits.

Well, as stated above, plan on cleaning up your electronics nicely this year, and you should be fine.

21-11-2008 00:39

Vikesrock

Re: pic: Night & Day

It appears I'm the one that should be apologizing. He mentioned both weight and size, but for some reason I assumed you were talking about size.

21-11-2008 02:29

synth3tk

Re: pic: Night & Day

Wow, I guess he did. It's time for me to go to bed.....

21-11-2008 06:27

Cory

Re: pic: Night & Day

I'd like to think that 254 and 968 have nicely organized electronics boards and I can say without a doubt that we could not possibly fit jaguars into any of our past 3 robots without redesigning the actual robot itself.

The size of the jaguar is a very real concern for us, regardless of how much better it's performance may or may not be.

21-11-2008 07:10

Triple B

Re: pic: Night & Day

sounds like the poofs and rawc will have a challenge this year, and I am sure they will out do everything previously accomplished.
mike d

21-11-2008 09:54

NickE

Re: pic: Night & Day

That would be on the assumption that we choose to use the jaguars this year.

21-11-2008 10:46

JesseK

Re: pic: Night & Day

I imagine we'll see more 3-D layouts for electronics this year. The first layout we'll probably try is an upside-down "T", with the Jaguars on the vertical part.

22-11-2008 21:46

samir13k

Re: pic: Night & Day

I got our kit today, and i saw the pro and the con of the jaguar

Pro: good performance, SURPRISINGLY LIGHT WEIGHT!!!

Con: looks even bigger in person (at least i think)

22-11-2008 21:56

AdamHeard

Re: pic: Night & Day

Can someone actually weigh the two and post?

A .1lb difference may not be noticeable by holding them, but could easily be an entire pound on the robot.

22-11-2008 21:59

synth3tk

Re: pic: Night & Day

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual weights too.

22-11-2008 22:01

Andrew Schreiber

Re: pic: Night & Day

If no one gets to this I can do it Wednesday.

22-11-2008 22:09

Lowfategg

Re: pic: Night & Day

Victor: 101.1 grams (.223 lbs)
Jaguar: 166.5 grams (.367 lbs)

Ecck!

(on the flip side the jaguar's do come with nice little stickers!)

By the way, if anyone else wants to know the weight of anything I be glad to measure it.

Edit: Updated with correct weights.

22-11-2008 23:38

samir13k

Re: pic: Night & Day

Yeah, Me also. I already have all the weights of the bot parts...i wont have them with me until monday though. If you need em' just pm me

22-11-2008 23:55

AdamHeard

Re: pic: Night & Day

IFI lists the Victors as .25 Lbs, even then, it's a good deal heavier.

23-11-2008 00:10

Lowfategg

Re: pic: Night & Day

Well that was with my triple beam balance, from what I can tell there ..223 lbs (mass).

23-11-2008 00:23

blaxbb

Re: pic: Night & Day

what about the weight of the old power distribution block, maxi fuse panel, and other fuse panel combined vs the weight of the new PD board

23-11-2008 02:18

Alan Anderson

Re: pic: Night & Day

The surprising lightness is because they're fluffy. They aren't as heavy as you'd expect from the size, but they're still more than half again as heavy as a Victor.

I too was struck by how much bigger they are in person than I was prepared for from the pictures. They're huge.

23-11-2008 10:12

Lowfategg

Re: pic: Night & Day

Well, it seems that my scale was off, so I calibrated it (the wonders of analog technology). These weights are hopefully more accurate.

Victor: 101.1 grams (.223 lbs)
Jaguar: 166.5 grams (.367 lbs)

Sorry about that!

23-11-2008 17:30

Burmeister #279

Re: pic: Night & Day

150% larger,
150% heavier,
lets just hope it performs more than 150% better =)

24-11-2008 00:12

samir13k

Re: pic: Night & Day

not to scare anyone, but id say it is way more than 150% larger...actually i'd say about 225% larger at least

at least i have had no problems with them. I would actually say that installation is a little easier since it is bigger, and they have also performed great so far!

(u can probably spot the pro and con of that second sentence i wrote)

24-11-2008 08:58

Tom Line

Re: pic: Night & Day

I think burmeister forgot that area is the square of length. So the length is 150% larger... but the area, well....

24-11-2008 09:45

JesseK

Re: pic: Night & Day

Yesterday we figured out a nifty space-saving way to mount these, and I'll post a pic tomorrow night once I put the memory card back into my camera so it will save the picture

Take a 1/16" wall angle aluminum piece that has 2.5" legs (hard to find I know, we had to cut metal meant for another purpose to get it), drill holes that are far enough up and apart so that a Jaguar can be vertically mounted to it. Then, mount the Jaguars back-to-back on the mount -- but -- rotate one of the Jaguars 180 degrees on the axis that's normal to the mount plate. This will put all of the motor outputs on one side and all of the power inputs on the other. Then, using either a 3" #8 bolt & nut, OR a #10 2" machine screw, you can screw the Jaguars to each other. For a production mount piece, you can mill out unnecessary metal from the middle and still maintain the rigidity.

WARNING: A #10 machine bolt will thread the inside of the holes. We haven't done shock testing yet with this setup, so YMMV for longevity of the mount.

Other than that, your power distribution block will need plenty of room on each side! This isn't room for wiring, no, it's room so that you can horizontally put a tiny screw driver in the slot in order to take a wire in or out. You can't do this from the top of the PDB, nor really effectively at an angle. The PDB was the single deciding factor in the majority of our preliminary electronics layout. Could someone point us to an effective tool that has a flat 90 degree tip, to alleviate that problem?

24-11-2008 09:49

IndySam

Re: pic: Night & Day

Every time this thread pops up I get Cole Porter in my head.

25-11-2008 07:21

robostangs548

Re: pic: Night & Day

When I saw pictures like this on CD I thought that they were going to be like GINOURMOUS, but they really are not that big, and they feel like there construction is of much better quality, like it is a "top of the line" type product. I actually like them, and don't really mind the size, because they pretty much are equal in weight.

25-11-2008 11:56

Cory

Re: pic: Night & Day

I hardly think putting a pretty plastic casing around them makes them more "quality" than the victors.

25-11-2008 13:12

Jonathan Norris

Re: pic: Night & Day

I'm not too excited for these until we can use the CAN features, and see how the nifty built features actually work.

30-11-2008 18:05

daltore

Re: pic: Night & Day

The case isn't just there for looks, it's a shroud to protect the H-bridge, and from what I've heard, it works pretty well, it keeps aluminum shavings and dust out. I have a dead Victor next to my computer right now, and it's really easy to see what a big deal that tiny consideration can be, HALF of the MOSFETs are charred white and actually blown out, just from a short caused by an aluminum shaving that got away from our protective towel. I'd say the case is worth it, and especially when we get the CAN interface green light, these Jaguars are going to be SO nice. Bottom line, if they're too big for you, and you've got enough money to buy a bunch of Victors, you don't have to use the Jaguar.

30-11-2008 19:55

synth3tk

Re: pic: Night & Day

And, as stated somewhere in one of these threads, it's an awesome engineering challenge. Where's the fun if it were just a puzzle?

30-11-2008 20:25

mcf747

Re: pic: Night & Day

Im going to touch on a few points here.....

I do all the electrical for my team and I must say I had the cleanest electrical board and wire harness that I saw at both of the regionals we went too and of any photos I saw. (Not to brag) But I think this is a good thing having a clean rig made it take up much less space and because everything was so clean we had no electrical problems all year.

This has been my though exactly! I have a feeling the game this year is going to be less focused on mechanical abilities and more "smart programming" and "intelligent robots". Some of my team mates have said just the opposite, thinking the game is going to be more mechanical based and less "intelligence" based because of patters they think they have found (we never know with FIRST) which also makes sense because that would allow us to get aquainted with all of this new stuff before we "really" had to use it to its full potential.

I think this is really clever I have not had much time with the new parts to play with them to much but I think this may become an necesity. Last year I have very little space given to me to do all the electronics to I came up with a "double decker" design but only used the top of each deck. I am thinking about going with a similar design but mounting stuff inverted, to the bottom of each deck and maybe on the side between the decks but I need to get ventilation in there some how.