Get Busy with the CAN Bus

In control of 4,000 lights in a multi-storey building

The CAN bus — officially known as Controller Area Network — allows connected devices to exchange short messages in an efficient way. Although originally designed as a robust vehicle communication bus using as little wiring as possible (twisted pair), today it has found its way into all sorts of other applications. CAN is not a master-slave, peer-to-peer (P2P) or other connection-based network, but message-based. Consequently, connected devices — the nodes — send messages whenever they feel like it and without caring if there’s anybody listening. Collision and error detection and prioritization schemes ensure that everything goes well as long as network traffic conditions remain normal.

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Materials

Get Busy with the CAN Bus

www.elektormagazine.com/labs/avr-playground-129009-2

https://github.com/Seeed-Studio/CAN_BUS_Shield

Project software

160464-11.zip

Extra info / Update

* No soldering required
* Supports over 4,000 nodes
* Easy to understand software
* Based on cheap modules

Component list

From the Store
129009-2: AVR Playground
CAN SPI click (5 V)

Component List
Miscellaneous
2 pcs. AVR Playground
2 pcs. CAN SPI click
1 pc. 4-channel relay shield
Twisted-pair cable