I recently purchased a USB-8473 & USB-8742. These CAN interfaces were purchased in order to allow us to connect a PC to a vehicle and analyze the vehicle's CAN-BUS signals. It was only after purchase that I discovered that neither of these interfaces come with a matching 9-pin D-SUB cable. While reading through the documentation that came on CD, I noted the relevant sections entitled "Cabling Requirements for High-Speed CAN" and "Cabling Requirements for Low-Speed/Fault-Tolerant CAN." In regards to the High-Speed version (USB-8473), the documentation seems to be saying I need to add a 120-ohm resistor (1/4W rated) between CAN_H and CAN_L on the D-SUB cable. But is this really true? I was further confused after reading through a Philips TJA1040 App-Note on this subject. Pages 11-13 of that Application Note talk about "stub nodes." Philips appears to be recommending weak termination on even stub nodes. Or are they recommending that stub node termination merely to improve the EMC behavior? At any rate, I assume that attaching one of my NI CAN USB interfaces to a vehicle's CAN socket would essentially be "attaching a stub node"? My fundamental question to this forum is simple: how do I properly make cables for my two USB adapters to work as expected in my application? Do I even need to worry about termination at all if I keep the cable length to 1-meter? And could I then use the same D-SUB cable on both the HI & LO speed CAN interfaces? (Note: currently, automotive CAN speeds do not exceed 500kb/s.) Yet another question... The NI CAN USB documentation talks about "V-" being the "CAN reference ground." I assume this is an INPUT to the NI CAN USB interface, such that I would need to connect it to "body earth ground" (grounded metal parts) in the car? Thank you.

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