Cerbuino Bee CANbus

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

Hi,

Is it possible to use the CANbus on a Cerbuino Bee with NETMF4.3?

I notice that there are no CanBus definitions in GHI.Pins for this board (I have connected a CAN-DW to D8[TD] and D11[RD]). I tried using ControllerAreaNetwork.Channel.Two (with the code example in Can we use Linux or a Mac for development? – GHI Electronics) but it is not working, just errors.

Do I need to modify a driver and define pins myself?

Cheers

Edit; Checked this with a CobraIII and it works fine so is there any way to access the CAN channels on the Cerbuino?

2

I’m just going to have a look in the firmware to see if I can figure it out.

3

@ wolfbuddy - CAN on the Cerb-Family boards is on pins PB8 and PB9. On the FEZ Cerbuino Bee, those two pins are on physical pins 7 and 9 on socket 3.

Since CAN in the Gadgeteer standard is on physical pins 4 and 5, you cannot just connect the CAN-DW module to socket 3 (which is why there is no CAN definition pressed in GHI.Pins.FEZCerbuinoBee.Socket3 for it). You will have to wire it yourself.

4

@ John. Thanks for clarifying. I have been using CAN channel 1 on a CobraIII (P0.0 and P0.1) to test my bench set up, so I knew that was OK. I’m also aware that there are no Gadgeteer sockets on the Bee that the CAN-DW can use directly.

So could you please also clarify that CAN channel 2 on PB5 and PB13 is not available on the Bee, even though it is on the schematic? Where could I of gotten this information from? Will PB8 and PB9 be ‘ControllerAreaNetwork.Channel.One’, or ‘ControllerAreaNetwork.Channel.Two’? :think:

This is what I find as the most frustrating thing when working with GHI stuff, I’ve wasted so much time because of port definitions. The UART numbering on the Bee does not match that of the schematic either. :wall:

Cheers

5

@ wolfbuddy - CAN2 on the Cerb-Family boards should be on pins PB5 and PB6, socket 1 pin 7 and socket 2 pin 9 respectively.

We are continually working to improve the documentation for all of our products. For our supported NETMF platforms, we have recently released a definitive datasheet that lists every pin and its function. Combined with the GHI.Pins assembly, there should be a lot less confusion going forward.

Unfortunately at this time we do not have a pinout for the Cerb-Family like you will see in the new datasheets. GHI.Pins should get you nearly everything you need for the Cerb-Family boards with the exception of non-Gadgeteer compliant features on a given socket, in this case CAN on the FEZ Cerbuino Bee.

6

@ John - yes GHI.Pins is very good but, when it comes to making physical connections, doesn’t always provide the answer.

The schematics for all cerbs boards state that CAN2 is on PB5 and PB13, so you can see where the confusion comes from in this instance. I chose to use this channel because it seemed to be on the headers, which makes it easier to patch in, but I knew there’d be someone available today to confirm.

Many thanks.