Toggling 12v and 5v power

Output power at both 12v and 5v can be toggled on and off using your code. This can be done in a couple different ways.

Toggling 12v power

The BrainBox provides 12v power to the Aux 12v port on the side of the BrainBox next to the motors. This power is off when your code starts, unless you have enabled it by default. In your code you can toggle whether this power is being supplied using the I.enable_12v property as shown below:

from robocon.brain import IO
I = IO()

# ...Your code

I.enable_12v = False

# ...Rest of your code

This will disable the Aux 12v port until you re-enable it using I.enable_12v = True. You can also check whether the 12v is currently enabled or disabled.

from robocon.brain import IO
I = IO()

I.enable_12v = False
print(I.enable_12v) # Outputs "False"

Toggling 5v power

The BrainBox supplied 5v power to multiple outputs. These are the Servos (all 0-3), as well as the 5v GPIO pin.

5v power is turned on by default when the start button is pressed, or when your code is started manually from the web editor. You can disable it similarly to the 12v power by using the following code:

from robocon.brain import IO
I = IO()

# ...Your code

I.enable_5v = False

# ...Rest of your code

This will disable the servo ports as well as the 5v GPIO pin until you re-enable them using I.enable_5v = True. You can also check whether the 5v is currently enabled or disabled.

from robocon.brain import IO
I = IO()

I.enable_5v = False
print(I.enable_5v) # Outputs "False"

Enabling or disabling power by default.

The BrainBox can automatically enable/disable the 5v and 12v power before your code starts running using the project attributes enable_5v and enable_12v respectively, setting them to either True or False as desired.

On generation 3 BrainBoxes you can also set them when creating your IO object. Anything you don’t set here is left as it was, with one exception: on firmware older than v14, creating the IO object turns the 12v power off unless you pass enable_12v=True. The firmware version is shown as Robocon Board in the hardware report at the top of your logs.

from robocon.brain import IO

I = IO(enable_12v=True, enable_5v=False)