Saw this Open Hardware NoCAN Pi hat today: Omzlo: The NoCAN platform
Arduino lib
Would this be interesting for CAN-capable SimpleFOC motor drivers?
Saw this Open Hardware NoCAN Pi hat today: Omzlo: The NoCAN platform
Arduino lib
Would this be interesting for CAN-capable SimpleFOC motor drivers?
Interesting. Although the hardware is really expensive. There are a lot cheaper solutions based on SPI CANBus you can get for less than $5 per node, without the need for a central node, using the real CANBus protocol. Last, the idea of CANBus is a decentralized model, and this appears to be a centralized daisy-chain model.
29euro for the Pi hat doesnât seem too bad to me?
I was imagining youâd âroll your ownâ device hardware into existing (or new) SimpleFOC driver hardware.
Iâll take a better look at the protocolâŚ
Well, the economics donât add up, because you need E29 for the PI hat and each node device requires extra E19 to connect into the daisychain, compared with $5 per CANBus node using this little board you can make yourself which is using the real CANBus and talks to any other CANBus node from any other manufacturer. Connecting a $1 temperature sensor with a $20 interface board seems like an overkill.
Why would it require that much? Iâm not suggesting buying their node hardware. Instead; add Canbus hardware components to modify existing SimpleFOC driver boards.
I need e50 to connect a small sensor to my RPi
The library works only with RPi and this exact HAT and nodes.
May be I donât understand the topology you are proposing, could you please be a little more specific?
Cheers,
Valentine
Ah if thatâs the case your comments make sense. I assumed that given it was open hardware and software it would be possible to just add some extra Can components and the Arduino code to existing SimpleFOC boards.
You could conceivably make it yourself however itâs really complicated. They are not exactly âtricking youâ, I mean itâs an honest open hardware but making it yourself requires very high skills.
What they did was take STM32G041 which is a crystal-less 32bit MCU, connected a can transceiver, then used I2C to connect to an Atmel chip and wrote a wrapper around the CANBus protocol. The G041 is programmed separately, and acts as a CAN controller, and sends/receives data from the ATMEL chip. Essentially they overlaid the CAN with another home grown protocol.
Itâs a nice way to make you buy their hardware, I must admit.
I remember looking into their G041 library a long time ago, then decided itâs so much work and trouble, and also introduced some HAL licensing issues with ST, I went for a much easier and cheaper option of using silicon directly.
Also you still need the central controller, which defeats the CANBus decentralized model paradigm. Like, its open and uses can but you MUST buy our hardware. And then you need RPi to control it.
To chime in on the CAN topic, because there was this one, and another recent thread where it was discussed. My thoughts in summary:
So while I think @Sam 's solution could very well work (there might be a problem with the pins used, I didnât check) I donât think this hardware is needed.
All it needs is MCU boards with on-board CAN, which for simple transceivers is not expensive. The isolated CAN controllers get very expensive, but I donât see the need for isolation on a hobbyist small robot / small motor system 5V CAN bus.