Reading CAN data with USB-6216?

[xander.cesari]

Hello all,

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed up before. Searching for CAN isn't very productive because every instance of 'can' shows up as well. Controller Area Network is the long form name but it doesn't seem to have been mentioned on this board.

I have a USB-6216 BNC DAQ card. I'm interested in reading CAN data from a MoTec data logger onto it. National Instruments has a series of white papers on CAN but they focus on their NI CAN hardware family, like these USB units.

Is there a reason why I can't run CAN data into my multifunction DAQ (USB-6216 BNC)? It's just digital data and I believe the sample rates should be adequate, especially as I can run my CAN network at a variety of speeds. I'm almost tempted to try to build a CAN reading program using digital DAQmx tasks just to see if it would work. But I wanted to check with this board first to see if there was something I'm missing because no one seems to have tried this before.

Regards,

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

---

@xander.cesari wrote:

Hello all,

I apologize in advance if this has been discussed up before. Searching for CAN isn't very productive because every instance of 'can' shows up as well. Controller Area Network is the long form name but it doesn't seem to have been mentioned on this board.

I have a USB-6216 BNC DAQ card. I'm interested in reading CAN data from a MoTec data logger onto it. National Instruments has a series of white papers on CAN but they focus on their NI CAN hardware family, like these USB units.

Is there a reason why I can't run CAN data into my multifunction DAQ (USB-6216 BNC)? It's just digital data and I believe the sample rates should be adequate, especially as I can run my CAN network at a variety of speeds. I'm almost tempted to try to build a CAN reading program using digital DAQmx tasks just to see if it would work. But I wanted to check with this board first to see if there was something I'm missing because no one seems to have tried this before.

Regards,

---

Why would anyone want to make their work more difficult for themselves?

Besides USB CAN, there are PXI CAN, PCI CAN, and PCMCIA CAN solutions.

[xander.cesari]

Because I have a USB-6216 BNC and I want to read CAN data into it... that's not really making anything more difficult than it has to be. The NI CAN examples don't seem to want to run on my card.

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

---

@xander.cesari wrote:

Because I have a USB-6216 BNC and I want to read CAN data into it... that's not really making anything more difficult than it has to be. The NI CAN examples don't seem to want to run on my card.

---

All the power to you.

[xander.cesari]

Do you have any knowledge of CAN that would clarify what I'm trying to do? You seem very dubious but you're not telling me why it would be so difficult.

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

Of course they won't run. Completely different hardware and drivers.

Your card has software timing only so you have no 'sample rate'. The best you can expect is no more than 1 kHz with considerable jitter from the os. You don't see any posts on the subject because people choose the right hardware for this. That really is a simple solution.

[xander.cesari]

See that's the technical information I was looking for. What if I built an external sample clock? Like a 555 oscillator or a function generator?

Unfortunately this task is low on the list of priorities so buying specific hardware for it really isn't economical. If CAN over this is infeasible I'll pursue a different solution but I wanted to explore my options.

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

---

@xander.cesari wrote:

See that's the technical information I was looking for.

---

Seriously?

Running example programs meant for different hardware and you expect it to work?

And that's the "technical" information someone had tell you?

[xander.cesari]

C'mon man, no need to get rude. If you think my questions are stupid just ignore them. You'd be surprised at how little information there is easily available about this basic stuff and we all have to learn it somewhere. When I don't know exactly why something may or may not work it's hard to figure out what to google other than "will this work". And since the term CAN is basically unsearchable I wasn't really finding anything. I knew it probably had something to do with timing and the way the data is sampled but nothing more specific than that.

My education in data acquisition and Labview has essentially been; figure out what I want to do, research and figure out the route to take, figure out how to actually implement it. In short, I know what I've tried to do and not much more than that. Please don't make these forums a place that's hostile to these kinds of questions, what makes NI and Labview so great is the extensive support.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Software timing means no provision for a hardware clock.