Peak PCAN-ExpressCard User manual

CAN Interface for the
ExpressCard Slot
User Manual
PCAN-ExpressCard
Document version 2.3.0 (2015-06-15)

PCAN-ExpressCard – User Manual
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Products taken into account
Product Name Model Part Number
PCAN-ExpressCard Single
Channel
One CAN channel IPEH-003000
PCAN-ExpressCard Dual
Channel
Two CAN channels IPEH-003001
PCAN-ExpressCard Single
Channel galvanically decoupled
One CAN channel, galvanic
isolation for CAN connection
IPEH-003002
PCAN-ExpressCard Dual
Channel galvanically decoupled
Two CAN channels, galvanic
isolation for CAN connections
IPEH-003003
The cover picture shows the product PCAN-ExpressCard Dual Channel. Other product
models have an identical form factor but vary in the number of CAN connectors
according to the model.
CANopen® and CiA® are registered community trade marks of CAN in Automation
e.V.
All other product names mentioned in this document may be the trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective companies. They are not explicitly marked
by “™” and “®”.
Copyright © 2015 PEAK-System Technik GmbH
Duplication (copying, printing, or other forms) and the electronic distribution of this
document is only allowed with explicit permission of PEAK-System Technik GmbH.
PEAK-System Technik GmbH reserves the right to change technical data without
prior announcement. The general business conditions and the regulations of the
license agreement apply. All rights are reserved.
PEAK-System Technik GmbH
Otto-Roehm-Strasse 69
64293 Darmstadt
Germany
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
www.peak-system.com
[e-mail]
Document version 2.3.0 (2015-06-15)

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Contents
1Introduction 5
1.1 Properties at a Glance 5
1.2 Prerequisites for Operation 6
1.3 Scope of Supply 6
2Installing the Software and the Card 7
3Connecting the CAN Bus 9
3.1 D-Sub Connector 9
3.2 Supplying External Devices via the CAN
Connector 9
3.3 Cabling 10
3.3.1 Termination 10
3.3.2 Example of a Connection 10
3.3.3 Maximum Bus Length 11
4Operation 12
4.1 Status LED 12
4.2 Removing the Adapter 12
5Software and API 13
5.1 Monitor Software PCAN-View 13
5.1.1 Receive/Transmit Tab 16
5.1.2 Trace Tab 18
5.1.3 PCAN-ExpressCard Tab 19
5.1.4 Status Bar 20
5.2 Linking Own Programs with PCAN-Basic 21
5.2.1 Features of PCAN-Basic 22
5.2.2 Principle Description of the API 23
5.2.3 Notes about the License 24

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6Technical Specifications 25
Appendix A CE Certificate 27
Appendix B Dimension Drawing 28
Appendix C Quick Reference 29

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1Introduction
The PCAN-ExpressCard provides a connection between a CAN bus
and a laptop or desktop PC with an ExpressCard slot. The card is
available in single and dual-channel versions. There are also gal-
vanically separated versions which guarantee galvanic separation
up to a maximum of 300 Volts between the PC and CAN sides.
Device drivers and programming interfaces exist for different oper-
ating systems, so programs can easily access a connected CAN bus.
Tip: At the end of this manual (Appendix C) you can find a
Quick Reference with brief information about the installation
and operation of the PCAN-ExpressCard.
1.1 Properties at a Glance
Card for ExpressCard slot
Form factor ExpressCard/54
1 or 2 High-speed CAN channels (ISO 11898-2)
Compliant with CAN specifications 2.0A (11-bit ID)
and 2.0B (29-bit ID)
Bit rates from 5 kbit/s up to 1 Mbit/s
CAN bus connection via D-Sub, 9-pin (in accordance to
CiA® 102)
NXP SJA1000 CAN controller, 16 MHz clock frequency
NXP PCA82C251 CAN transceiver
Galvanic isolation on the CAN connection up to 300 V (only
galvanically decoupled models), separate for each CAN channel

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Software option to switch a 5-Volt supply to the CAN
connection, e.g. for external bus converter
Operating temperature range from 0 to 70 °C (32 to 158 °F)
Note: This manual describes the use of the PCAN-ExpressCard
with Windows. You can find device drivers for Linux and the
corresponding application information on the provided DVD in
the directory branch Develop and on our website under
www.peak-system.com/linux.
1.2 Prerequisites for Operation
ExpressCard slot in the computer, type ExpressCard/54
Operating system Windows 8.1, 7, Vista (32/64-bit)
or Linux (32/64-bit)
1.3 Scope of Supply
PCAN-ExpressCard CAN interface
Device drivers for Windows 8.1, 7, Vista (32/64-bit)
and Linux (32/64-bit)
PCAN-View CAN monitor for Windows 8.1, 7, Vista (32/64-bit)
PCAN-Basic programming interface consisting of an interface
DLL, examples, and header files for all common programming
languages
Manual in PDF format

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2Installing the Software and
the Card
This chapter covers the software setup for the PCAN-ExpressCard
under Windows and the installation in the computer.
Setup the driver before connecting the PCAN-ExpressCard for the
first time.
Do the following to install the driver:
1. Insert the supplied DVD into the appropriate drive of the
computer. Usually a navigation program appears a few
moments later. If not, start the file Intro.exe from the root
directory of the DVD.
2. In the main menu, select Drivers, and then click on
Install now.
3. Confirm the message of the User Account Control regarding
the "Installer Database of PEAK Drivers".
The setup program for the driver is started.
4. Follow the instructions of the program.

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Do the following to connect the PCAN-ExpressCard to the
computer and complete the initialization:
1. Insert the PCAN-ExpressCard into an ExpressCard slot of
your computer. The computer can remain powered on.
Windows notifies that new hardware has been detected. The
drivers are found and installed by Windows automatically.
After the initialization process for the driver for the CAN interface is
finished successfully an LED is on for each CAN connection of the
PCAN-ExpressCard. Furthermore, you can find the entry “PCAN-
ExpressCard” in the branch “CAN-Hardware” of the Windows
Device Manager.

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3Connecting the CAN Bus
3.1 D-Sub Connector
A High-speed CAN bus (ISO 11898-2) is connected to the 9-pin D-
Sub connector. The pin assignment corresponds to the specification
CiA® 102.
Figure 1: Pin assignment High-speed CAN
3.2 Supplying External Devices via the CAN
Connector
Optionally a 5-Volt supply can be switched with the provided
Windows software PCAN-View onto pin 1 of a D-Sub CAN
connector (for the Dual Channel model simultaneously for both
CAN connectors). Thus devices with low power consumption (e.g.
bus converters) can be directly supplied via the CAN connector.
When using this option the 5-Volt supply is directly connected to the
power supply of the computer and is not fused separately. The
galvanically decoupled models of the card have an interconnected
DC/DC converter. Therefore the current output is limited to 50 mA.
You find further information about the use of this option in PCAN-
View in section 5.1.3 on page 19.

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Attention! Risk of short circuit! If the option described in this
section is activated, you may only connect or disconnect CAN
cables or peripheral systems (e.g. bus converters) to or from
the PCAN-ExpressCard while it is de-energized (the card is not
connected to the computer). Consider that some computers still
supply the ExpressCard slot with power even when they are
turned off (standby operation).
3.3 Cabling
3.3.1 Termination
A High-speed CAN bus (ISO 11898-2) must be terminated on both
ends with 120 Ohms. Otherwise, there are interfering signal
reflections and the transceivers of the connected CAN nodes (CAN
interface, control device) will not work.
The PCAN-ExpressCard does not have an internal termination. Use
the adapter on a terminated CAN bus.
3.3.2 Example of a Connection
Figure 2: Simple CAN connection
In this example, the PCAN-ExpressCard is connected with a control
unit by a cable that is terminated at both ends.

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3.3.3 Maximum Bus Length
High-Speed-CAN networks may have bit rates of up to 1 Mbit/s. The
maximum bus length depends primarily on the bit rate.
The following table shows the maximum possible CAN bus length
at different bit rates:
Bit rate Bus length
1 Mbit/s 40 m
500 kbit/s 110 m
250 kbit/s 240 m
125 kbit/s 500 m
50 kbit/s 1.3 km
20 kbit/s 3.3 km
10 kbit/s 6.6 km
5 kbit/s 13.0 km
The listed values have been calculated on the basis of an idealized
system and can differ from reality.

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4Operation
4.1 Status LED
The PCAN-ExpressCard has a status LED for each existing CAN
channel which may be in one of the following conditions:
Status LED Meaning
On There's a connection to a driver of the operating
system.
Slow blinking A software application is connected to the CAN
channel.
Quick blinking Data is transmitted via the connected CAN bus.
4.2 Removing the Adapter
Under Windows the icon for removing hardware safely is not used
with the PCAN-ExpressCard. You may remove the card from the
computer without any preparation under Windows.

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5Software and API
This chapter covers the provided software PCAN-View and the
programming interface PCAN-Basic.
5.1 Monitor Software PCAN-View
PCAN-View is simple Windows software for viewing, transmitting,
and logging CAN- and CAN FD messages.
Note: This chapter describes the use of PCAN-View with a CAN
adapter.
Figure 3: PCAN-View for Windows

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Do the following to start and initialize PCAN-View:
1. Open the Windows Start menu or the Windows Start page
and select PCAN-View.
The dialog box for selecting the hardware and for setting
the parameters appears.
Figure 4: Selection of the specific hardware and parameters
2. From the list Available PCAN hardware, select the desired
interface to be used.
3. Select the bit rate that is used by all nodes on the CAN bus
from the drop-down list Bit rate. Use the button to the right
of the drop-down list to create User-defined bit rates.
4. Under Filter settings you can limit the range of CAN IDs to
be received, either for standard frames (11-bit IDs) or for
extended frames (29-bit IDs).

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5. Activate the Listen-only mode if you do not actively
participate in the CAN traffic and just want to observe. This
also avoids an unintended disruption of an unknown CAN
environment (e.g. due to different bit rates).
6. Finally, confirm the settings in the dialog box with OK. The
main window of PCAN-View appears (see Figure 5).

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5.1.1 Receive/Transmit Tab
Figure 5: Receive/Transmit tab
The Receive/Transmit tab is the main element of PCAN-View. It
contains two lists, one for received messages and one for the
transmit messages. Representation of CAN data is in hexadecimal
format.
Do the following to transmit a CAN message with PCAN-View:
1. Select the menu command Transmit > New Message
(alternatively or Ins).
The dialog box New Transmit Message is shown.

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Figure 6: Dialog box new transmit message
2. Enter the ID and the data for the new CAN message.
3. The field Cycle Time indicates if the message shall be
transmitted manually or periodically. If you want to transmit
the message periodically, you must enter a value greater
than 0. For a manual-only transmission enter 0.
4. Confirm the entries with OK.
The created transmit message appears on the
Receive/Transmit tab.
5. You trigger selected transmit messages manually with the
menu command Transmit > Send (alternatively Space bar).
The manual transmission for CAN messages being
transmitted periodically is carried out additionally.
Tip: Using the menu command File > Save the current transmit
messages can be saved to a list and loaded for reuse later on.

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5.1.2 Trace Tab
Figure 7: Trace tab
On the Trace tab the data tracer of PCAN-View is used for logging
the communication on a CAN bus. During this process the CAN
messages are cached in the working memory of the PC. Afterwards
they can be saved to a file.
The tracer can be configured to run in linear or in ring buffer mode.
In linear buffer mode the logging is stopped as soon as the buffer is
filled completely. In ring buffer mode the oldest messages are
overwritten by incoming ones.

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5.1.3 PCAN-ExpressCard Tab
Figure 8: PCAN-ExpressCard tab
On the PCAN-ExpressCard tab the 5-Volts supply on pin 1 of the
D-Sub CAN connector is enabled or disabled. For the Dual Channel
model the setting is valid for both CAN connectors simultaneously.
You find information about technical details in section 3.2
on page 9.
To toggle the setting press the button Enable / Disable.
Attention! Risk of short circuit! If the option described in this
section is activated, you may only connect or disconnect CAN
cables or peripheral systems (e.g. bus converters) to or from
the PCAN-ExpressCard while it is de-energized (the card is not
connected to the computer). Consider that some computers still
supply the ExpressCard slot with power even when they are
turned off (standby operation).

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5.1.4 Status Bar
Figure 9: Example of the status bar
The status bar shows information about the current CAN
connection, about error counters (Overruns, QXmtFull), and shows
error messages.
You can find further information about the use of PCAN-View in the
help which you can invoke in the program via the Help menu or
with the F1 key.