USB-to-CAN compact v2 and OBD2 port in car

[Roland]

Hi,

I am quite new to this. I have a USB-to-CAN compact V2 with a DB9 port which should be in accordance with CiA® 303-1.
I have a cable of Peak systems, which convertes the DB9 port (CiA® 303-1) to OBD2.

Using the Mini can analyzer in Windows, the device is present and properly installed. But the CAN port does not come up.
Supposedly the car (Mercedes Sprinter W906) is using a CAN bus speed of 83.3kbit/s. But I am only able to configure 83kbit/s.
And I don’t know the other fields.

How should I go from here?

[kyle_HMS]

Do you have a terminating resistor?

You can create a custom bitrate:

See ‘Setting a bitrate’ in the Help Section:

[Roland]

Ok thank you, I thought the Peak OBD2 cable had a resistor in it, but that is not the case.
I bought the resistor now, and will try that with Windows later.
Great that I can set a custom bitrate. I can find bitrates for the cars, but I don’t know about the other fields TSEG1/2, SJW, REG0/1

For now I am wondering, is there somewhere I can read about how to configure it in Linux?
With the SocketCAN driver the device is recognized and a “can0” is created, visible through “ip link show” and in Wireshark.
It doesn’t come up though, also not with the extra terminating resistor. I am guessing I should configure bitrate through command line? And manually set the port to up? but it doesn’t let me do that.
CAN led stays off, USB led is green.

[kyle_HMS]

Hi Roland,

For Linux, you can use either the SocketCAN driver or the ECI driver. I have previously discussed the differences between them here:

How to install driver for usb-to-can v2 in jetson nano?

Hi @Jihao, The drivers are on the Product Page. Each download package has documentation and demo code examples. I would suggest downloading both SocketCAN and ECI and reading the documentation and examples to determine which you feel would be better for your project.

If you are using Linux kernel 5.10 or newer, please use the following SocketCAN driver:

SocketCAN_2_0_378_Modified_PeWu_2022-07-12.tar (3.6 MB)

Here is the getting started document:
first_steps.md (5.1 KB)

There is also demo C code in the ‘IX_SocketCAN-example_1.0.366-REL’ directory as well. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best Regards,

Kyle Reynolds

[Roland]

Thanks Kyle, I will do some testing and get back to you.

For now a side question:
I also bought the Ixxat CAN converter from DB9 to RJ45. It needs a gender changer.
To see if the port would come up, I connected the USB-to-CAN v2, with the terminating resistor and the DB9 gender changer, with the DB9 to RJ45 converter.
I connected this in the port of a Victron system, more specifically, a Victron Cerbo GX device. I heard a click, and the USB led went to red and had a small flickering green led next to it.
The device clearly had an issue, and port was gone in Linux too. After a while, it came back, USB led went to green again and the device came up in Linux again.

Is it correct that this was some kind of electrical protection that kicked in?
I noticed that my cheap DB9 gender changer was falling apart, so I think it did not connect through the metal grounding of the DB9 connector (the big metal part surrounding it, not one of the pins), that might have caused it.
Device seemed to recover from that, but I am unsure if I did any damage?
Hopefully I will have some operational CAN messages coming in soon, confirming that the device is still working.

Best regards,
Roland

[kyle_HMS]

@Roland

I also bought the Ixxat CAN converter from DB9 to RJ45.

I’m not exactly sure which product you are referring to. Do you have a picture or order code?

@Roland

I connected this in the port of a Victron system, more specifically, a Victron Cerbo GX device.

There is an RJ45 CAN port on this device? Do you have the pinout from the Victron User Manual?

@Roland

Device seemed to recover from that, but I am unsure if I did any damage?

I would test it with Windows and another CAN device to make sure it’s still operational.

[Roland]

@kyle_HMS

@Roland

I also bought the Ixxat CAN converter from DB9 to RJ45.

I’m not exactly sure which product you are referring to. Do you have a picture or order code?

Ixxat 1.04.0074.01000

@kyle_HMS

@Roland

I connected this in the port of a Victron system, more specifically, a Victron Cerbo GX device.

There is an RJ45 CAN port on this device? Do you have the pinout from the Victron User Manual?

Yes it has RJ45 CAN ports.
Victron VE.can pinout indeed shows different pinout than Ixxat RJ45
GND pin 3
CAN-H pin 7
CAN-L pin 8
So it wouldn’t have worked anyway.
But it gets me wondering what went wrong, because I didn’t like to hear a clicking sound and the led going to red. I will look at the shielding next time.

@kyle_HMS

@Roland

Device seemed to recover from that, but I am unsure if I did any damage?

I would test it with Windows and another CAN device to make sure it’s still operational.

Yes I will do that and get back.

[kyle_HMS]

The 1.04.0074.01000 adapter is for use with the USB-to-CAN V2 models which have an RJ45 port instead of a DB9 port.

The pinout is here.

[Roland]

Ok, so it should be used opposite to what I did.

Anyway, I made an RJ45 to DB9 cable specifically for the pinout with Victron VE.Can but the CAN port never seems to go up. I also switched around CAN-L and CAN-H just to be sure.
I also hooked it up to an Evaluation board with a CAN port (Olimex ESP32-EVB to be precise) and made it send some CAN commands, but again the CAN port never comes up.

So in all my testing I have never seen the CAN led do anything. The CAN led is always off, and the USB led always green. Not even the wrong color with a bunch of errors, for example if I would have the speed configured wrong. With and without the DB9 terminator resistor in between.

So I am beginning to suspect the device. What should I do next?
I don’t know the exact age of the device, but it was unused / new in package before I used it.
It is an USB-to-CAN v2 (1.01.0281.12001 V1.1) and in the upper right corner (next to QR code) it says HW376635 40/14

[kyle_HMS]

Can you send a picture of the label? I’m unable to find that serial number in our system.

The CAN LED will not go green until an active CAN bus is detected with proper termination at both ends of the bus. The resistance should equal 60 ohms (two 120 Ohm resistors in parallel).

The voltage should be for the CAN High wire usually fluctuates between 2.5V and 3.5V. The CAN-Low wire usually fluctuates between 2.5V and 1.5V.

[Roland]

Yes I am aware that both ends need a 120Ohm resistor. I made sure that I had that. Using the Ixxat terminating resistor at the Ixxat USB-to-CAN device. And the devices under test also had a terminating resistor. And that is communicating with each other.

[Roland]

On the box it came in, I find the same info.

[kyle_HMS]

I think (I’m not positive and will try to verify this) it may not be in our system due to it’s age.

Can you run VCI4floadGUI.exe in the ‘C:\Program Files\HMS\Ixxat VCI’ directory and send a screenshot of what is detected?

Also, can you send a screenshot running CANanalyser Mini?

Thanks.

[Roland]

Thanks for your support, see below:

[Roland]

So it is running v1.07.00 (2019) and I see there is a v1.08.04 (2022) firmware version, I guess I should be upgrading to that?
Not sure if it will help if I have hardware issues.

[Roland]

I am also measuring the Ixxat terminator resitor plug 1.04.0072.03000 pins 2 and 7 (CAN-L and H) and I am measuring above 1800 Ohm resistance?
I don’t have it connected to anything, I am just measuring it by itself. Trying to verify my setup.

[Roland]

I updated the device to the V01.08.04 firmware, but it doesn’t make any difference.

[kyle_HMS]

I did verify this device was manufactured in 2014, so it wouldn’t be under warranty. However, it is detected by CanAnalyser. Is there another CAN bus (or CAN device) that you can test it with? Right now it’s indicating that it does not detect an active CAN bus. If you could get it to work you could rule out the USB-to-CAN V2 hardware as the problem.

The resistance is definitely not right. Is the device powered off? Can you measure it at another point on the bus?

Here is a good video about measuring/troubleshooting a CAN bus. At around 8:00 he talks about measuring resistance: CAN Bus Properties and Troubleshooting - YouTube

[Roland]

Hi Kyle, I went to somebody who has an older Ixxat USB to CAN compact (not V2). So he has a Windows installation with the mini can analyzer software. And a pcb that is sending CAN messages.
So his older USB to CAN compact is working fine, and my v2 is connected and again not working in this verified setup.
My v2 is recognized in his setup, but not showing any traffic, with all other parameters the same. Again, not even errores packets.
And CAN LED stays off.

The unit doesn’t seem very repairable. It is just one pcb that probably needs to be replaced as a whole?

[kyle_HMS]

Hi Roland,

You’re correct, it does appear to be faulty and it’s not repairable so it would have to be replaced as it’s out of warranty. Do you have an IXXAT distributor already?

If not, you can find one here: Ixxat Distributor | Find Distributor | Ixxat

Best Regards,
Kyle