How to Determine What is on the CAN Data Bus

During the development cycle you may be working on setting up your CAN bus devices or Free Form CAN in PowerVision Configuration Studio from data sheets. Real life may not be the same as what is presented in the data sheet or it may be missing crucial information. Before testing your configuration it is extremely helpful to know exactly what is on the data bus and how each device is sending their data and what source addresses they are using.

For example a CAN Open device may say they are using only the first two data bytes of a message but they send a packet of 8 data bytes with the unused data bytes stuffed with 0xFF. If you set your FreeForm message up with a byte length of 2 bytes the message will not be received.

To capture this information you need a CAN data logger or CAN Analysis tools. CANCapture is the tool we primarily use however if you do not have this resource available PowerVision Configuration Studio offers a CAN data logging feature that allows you to capture CAN bus activity and export it to a .csv file. Click on the following links to learn more about each of these options.

Three Ways to View CAN Data on the Bus

1. Use a Display running our CAN Datalogger configuration, then analyze the .csv output file
   • Download: CAN Data Logger Configuration
2. Use CANCapture with an ECom Cable to view live CAN data
   • Article: Using CANCapture Tools
3. Use other CAN analysis tools