Kvaser or Peak CAN bus adapters for CAN Open. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 10:44:18 am
content: I personally own a Kvaser CAN bus USB adapter but have also used PEK CAN bus adapters in a previous job. Right now I am looking to start using CAN open and my current employer does not own any adapters and will need to buy both adapters and software. Which one will be more suitable? from what I see so far Peak seems to be more common for compatibility with software.Any suggestions on CAN open software? I'm looking to control CAN Open devices from a micro controller, later a single board computer will be on the network. I know it will help to have a PC connected to the network to see what goes on on the bus to diagnose problems or get diagnostic data.

author: rvalente
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 12:19:09 pm
content: Kvaser has a large third party software vendors, call them, last time I've asked for their support was very good

author: Jeroen3
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 12:41:14 pm
content: If you're going to write your own software for it I can recommend kvaser.We have many leaf lights, and they just always work.In python, in c++. You can easily run multiple apps on one adapter, and they can actually do a full 1 Mbit bus of messages. (for bootloaders)

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 06:13:35 pm
content: I only have experience with kvaser, and it was a very pleasant one. I write my own applications, under windows. Integrating kvaser with Qt was a breeze, added the dll to the project and the relative include file. It took little time to write a wrapper class with the functions i needed operating in its own thread.. It really "just works"however some times i wish i had Peak/Vector because when i have to deal with other people's software i find that they rarely support kvaser, always PEAK or Vector

author: fchk
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 07:31:25 pm
content: If you use Linux the hardware does not matter. Windows does not have a standard interface for CAN, Linux does. For Linux apps CAN interfaces are special network interfaces, and you use the standard socket api to talk to them. This is the same on PC (with every hardware supporting SocketCAN), NVidia Jetson, Raspberry PI or any other architecture. Even some RTOS implement SocketCan.If you intend to use embedded controllers and single board computers you surely will use Linux on them. It makes sense to use Linux on PC hardware then to have the same platform and software.There are Open Source CanOpen stacks.https://github.com/CANopenNode/CANopenLinuxhttps://opensource.lely.com/canopen/

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 07:57:19 pm
content: Both are OK. In linux, there is standardized interface so that a revolutionary idea coined somewhere in 1980's (or even earlier), called"drivers", exists. Therefore, application does not need to know what hardware the user has - application is always the same, only correct driver is installed, and then the app works with any hardware.Microsoft has not heard about this concept still in 2020's, so if you need to support Windows, then every CAN application has to separately support every CAN adapter in existence; the Kvaser and Peak are probably the two most common, so it makes sense to write code to support both of them, plus maybe any third one specifically requested by your customers. I have done that in my CAN projects and luckily their interfaces are both pretty simple so you can write your own wrapper layer in matter of hours.

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 22, 2024, 08:08:29 pm
content: I'm not looking to write code for these adapters but recommend to my employer a CAN bus adapter and CAN Open network software for windows PC's.Yes I will be developing applications on single board computers under linux but this is separate from the diagnostics setup. Yes I "could" use linux on a development computer but I will have to clear this with my employer. We have a laptop that is sort of spare for development, I could dual boot it.