Hello everyone, I’ve been working on a school project trying to use a v5 vex brain to control electrical 12V non-vex components, such as door magnets. The problem is I’m not familiar with the rs485 serial communication. Is there anywhere I can research about it and do you know about any electrical module that could control these components when recieving an electrical pulse from vex brain?
Now I’m using a v5 motor circuit, when I put that motor to spin forward, I have +12V in these out pins that turns on my magnet but I want to stop doing it because I don’t know if this could damage the circuit or the v5 brain.
Do you need to use the 12V power from the brain or would you be able to add an external power supply for the non-VEX loads?
If you can use a piggy-back power supply, try using a small 5V relay controlled by a 3-wire port. You would connect the relay coil between the ‘Signal’ and the ‘Gnd’ pin on the 3-wire port.
You would use the normally-open (NO) contact of the relay just like you would use a switch. You would wire from the auxiliary battery to one of the contact pins, from the other contact pin to your load, then from your load back to the auxiliary battery.
This would be a very safe way to control higher power loads with a V5 brain.
And if, like my team last year, you need EVEN MORE for some absurd reason, well, there are ways. When I disassemble the rest of the bot, I’ll post some cursed images.
