Hi everybody. Our team is having extreme issues with our jags. We’ve gotten the Blinking Red Light of Doom on one, and completely burned through another. We really need some new controllers before ship day and would be indefinitely grateful to any team who can help us out. We would prefer victors as we are all currently going crazy with these precarious jags, but even extra jaguars would be extremely helpful. Purchase is not out of the question, although charity is nice too. 
Our team is located at klein, but if you’re a really quick responder, we’re out at Reagan High (outside of Houston) at the moment.
Furthermore, if any teams who have had experience with the Jaguars and/or have experienced the same issues as us, do you have any pointers as to what we are doing wrong? The most information i can give at this point is that one was experiencing a fault (blinking red light) and we could not manage to correct it, and on another the status light does not even turn on, but it is obvious that the fan is at least attempting to spin. The team is running manual diagnostics on the motors and controllers now, so I’ll update with whatever new info we glean.
Thanks everybody. We really appreciate it.
While we can’t lend/sell any jags or victors at the moment due to burning out four of them, i can try help figure out what broke. On ours that stopped working, aluminum shavings got in and shorted a MOSFET, which melted and released its magic smoke. We have been experimenting with replacing them, but have not tested our fixed jag yet… Best of luck to you guys and I hope this helps…
www.vexrobotics.com. You can buy Victor Speed Controllers there.
The most obvious thing to ask is, are you protecting your speed controllers (and all other electronics) when you drill metal above or near them? Use a large, clean sheet, towel, or other covering, and thoroughly cover the area above the victors/jags. After drilling is done, gently remove the covering from the robot and shake out the chips well away from the work area.
It helps to periodically vacuum out the robot, especially around/in the electronics. Using canned air to blow on components is frowned upon, because you may blow any unseen debris further into them.
Spark chasers don’t let metal benders fry speed controllers.
You can RMA Black Jaguars using these instructions
I doubt you can get a replacement in time for Lone Star, but you will have them for the future. I have never RMA Jags with this procedure, but in 09 I did exchange for replacement with Luminary Mirco reps at the competition. Do Luminary Micro/TI reps come to Texas competitions? If so, maybe they could look at it for you.
You should be able to get some on loaner speed controllers at Lone Star if you dont buy some before hand.
Blinking red light does not mean dead. If it’s fast, it just means it’s spinning the motor backwards. If it’s slow, it’s a fault condition, meaning undervoltage (check battery) overcurrent (make sure your motors aren’t stalling), limit switch (make sure your jumpers are in) or over temperature (rare).
Make sure that you’re not doing anything wrong with your jaguars (like the metal shavings thing), because you really do not want to burn out another team’s jags.