PCANView Help index

Getting started

PCAN system basics

Receiving CAN messagestopic_ReceivingMessages

Sending CAN messages

Sending CAN messages

Editing the Transmit list

Answering received Remote Request messages

The Main window

The Toolbar

The Receive List

The Send List

The Status bar

Menus

The Client menu

The Transmit menu

The Help menu

Program uninstallation


Getting started

PCANView is an easy to use monitoring program to supervise the data flow on a Controller Area Network (CAN). It is based on the PCAN system by PEAK-System Technik GmbH. This system’s kernel is responsible for the connection of Windows applications to a CAN Bus connected to the PC in real time manner.

PCANView has the following features:

•	Display of every received message with ID, length and data in a list. Additionally the number of messages with the same ID and the delay between the last two of those messages are shown. Therefore the frequency of periodically received messages can be obtained.

•	Display of received Remote Frames as well as their number of appearance and the time interval of reception.

•	Freely created messages may be put into a send list. These messages either can be sent automatically in fixed intervals, as an answer to a Remote Frame or manually.

•	Errors occurring on the CAN Bus and the controller are shown.


PCAN system basics

PCAN means PEAK CAN APPLICATIONS and is a flexible system for planning, developing and using a CAN Bus System. Developers as well as end users are getting a helpful and powerful product.

The communication from PCs to external hardware via the CAN Bus is based on a Windows Ring-0-Driver (Virtual Device Driver, VxD) called PEAKCANL.VXD. This driver is the core of a complete CAN environment on a PC running Windows and works as an interface between CAN software and PC-based CAN hardware. The driver manages the entire data flow of every CAN device connected to the PC.

An user or administrator of a CAN installation gets access via the PCAN-Clients (short: Clients). Different parameters of processes can be visualized and changed with their help. The Driver allows the connection of several Clients at the same time (the “Light” version of the Driver, that is installed in connection with the PCANView, supports up to 3 Clients).

Furthermore several hardware components based on the controller SJA1000 (e.g. the PCAN-Dongle or PC-ISA/PCI CAN adapter) are supported by the driver. So called “Nets” provide the logical structure for CAN busses, that are extended into the PC. On the hardware side several Clients can be connected, too. The following figures demonstrate different possibilities of Net configurations (also realizable together):

Example for possible Net configurations

The Features:

•	One Client may be connected to several Nets.

•	One Net provides several Clients.

•	One piece of hardware belongs to one Net.

•	One Net can include none or one piece of hardware.

•	A message from a sending Client is carried on to every other Client and to the external bus by the hardware.

•	A message coming from the hardware is received by every Client. However Clients react only on those messages, that pass their acceptance filter.

Important:

Users of PCANView for PCI CAN card, PCANView for Dongle and PCANView for ISA CAN card don’t have to define and manage Nets. In these programs, the Hardware connection is established by directly selecting the installed CAN hardware on program start, which shall be used for communication.

The PCANView for … programs are slightly restricted versions of the full featured PCANView, which is part of the PCAN Evaluation and the PCAN Developer package.


Program uninstallation

To uninstall PCANView, open Windows Control Panel and  double-click the icon “Add/remove software”. Select the entry PCANView from the list of the installed software and click the button Add/remove. The uninstallation program will  be started which removes PCANView and all its components from the computer.


The Connect to CAN hardware dialog

After starting PCANView, the Connect to CAN hardware dialog will be displayed. In order to work with PCANView, the program must first be connected to a hardware, which can be chosen from the shown hardware list.

Connect to CAN hardware dialog

Users of PCANView for CAN Dongle or PCANView for ISA CAN card have to configure their hardware before connecting to it. Both CAN Dongle and ISA CAN card aren’t Plug-And-Play devices and therefore must be added manually to the hardware list. See Adding CAN hardware.

Note for users of PCANView for PCI CAN card:

If the list is empty, make sure you have correctly installed the PCI card into your PC. After plugging in the card and booting Windows, the hardware will be detected automatically by the system. Windows then asks for a hardware driver, which is provided on the Driver Disk. Please see the hardware installation guide for the proper installation procedure.

The following further parameters are requested:

Baud rate: This box offers a selection of predefined Baud rates. If a custom Baud rate is required, select the entry “User” and enter the corresponding hexadecimal value for the SJA 1000 Baud rate register (Bus Timing Register BTR0 / BTR1) into the edit field to the right.

Baud rate register value: This field shows the current hexadecimal value of the SJA 1000 Baud rate register (BTR0 / BTR1). To change the value, either select one of the predefined Baud rate values or select the “User” Baud rate and enter a custom value into the field.

Message filter: The fields in this group offer a manual configuration of the SJA 1000 message filter.


To add new CAN Dongles or ISA CAN cards, press this button. The button is not visible in PCANView for PCI CAN card.


If a CAN Dongle or ISA CAN card is selected in list of the installed CAN hardware below, pressing this button removes the hardware from the list.


This list shows all CAN hardware which has been detected on the computer by the installed device driver, or which has been configured by the user manually.


This box offers a selection of predefined Baud rates. If a custom Baud rate is required, select the entry “User” and enter the corresponding hexadecimal value for the SJA 100 Baud rate register (Bus Timing Registers BTR0 / BTR1) into the edit field to the right.


This field shows the current hexadecimal value of the SJA 1000 Baud rate register (BTR0 / BTR1). To change the value, either select one of the predefined Baud rate values or select the “User” Baud rate and enter a custom value into the field.


To configure the message filter for receiving Standard Frames with 11-Bit CAN identifier, select this option.


To configure the message filter for receiving Standard Frames and Extended Frames with 29-Bit CAN identifier, select this button.


This field holds the lowest CAN identifier that passes the programs acceptance filter.


This field holds the highest CAN identifier that passes the programs acceptance filter.


Adding CAN hardware

Pressing the button Add… in the Connect to CAN hardware dialog opens the Adding CAN hardware dialog.

Adding CAN hardware dialog

To add CAN hardware manually, select the hardware type from the list, select proper I/O address and Interrupt resources used by the hardware, and press OK. If the selected hardware is found using the given resources, it will be added to the list of installed hardware, otherwise an error message will be shown.


This list shows all hardware types supported by the installed CAN driver.


Select the I/O address which is used by the CAN hardware. If you use a parallel port CAN Dongle, a common value is 0378h. To be sure, check the system configuration via Windows Control Panel.


Select the Interrupt which is used by the CAN hardware. If you use a parallel port CAN Dongle, c common value is 7. To be sure, check the system configuration via the Windows Control Panel.


The Connect to Net dialog

After starting PCANView, the Connect to Net dialog will be displayed. In order to work with PCANView, the program must first be connected to a PCAN net, which can be chosen from the shown list.

Connect to Net dialog

Furthermore, the following Message Filter parameters are requested:

Standard/Extended: These options select a filter configuration for Standard or Extended Frames (29-Bit CAN  identifiers).

From/To: These fields allow an adjustment of the lowest and the highest CAN identifiers that pass the accetpance filter of  the PCANView program. If the Standard option is selected, a maximum identifier range from 0 to 7FFh can be entered. If the Extended option is selected, identifiers from 0 to 1FFFFFFFh are permitted. The default settings adjust the filter to receive all CAN messages on the bus.


This list shows all available PCAN nets to which the client can be connected.


The Main window

The PCANView shows every relevant information in one window. Besides the Toolbar in the upper area and the Status bar in the bottom, the window is divided into two main areas,

•	the Receive Listcontrol_RcvList>Standard

•	the Send Listcontrol_XmtList>Standard

The Main Window of PCANView

As long as a hardware connection exists, one of the two list windows has the input focus. When messages are sent or received, navigation in the corresponding window is possible with the cursor keys [image] and [image]. With the help of the [image] key you can toggle the focus between both lists.

The list window that has the input focus can be maximized to the whole main window size by pressing the [image] key, and can be restored to the original size by pressing the [image] key.


The Receive list

The Receive list shows every message that passed the reception filter of both the CAN controller and the Client,  since the last reset. The messages are sorted by their CAN identifiers in ascending order. Therefore messages of high priority are shown at the top of the list.

The Receive list

Meaning of the columns:

Message: Identifier of the CAN message, hexadecimal format, range from 0 to 7FFh for 11 bit identifiers and from 0 to 1FFFFFFFh for 29 bit identifiers (CAN specification 2.0b)

Length: Data length code of the message (range from 0 to 8)

Data: Values of the messages’ data bytes (up to 8) or the text Remote request, if a remote frame has been received

Period: Period of time between the reception of the last two messages with this identifier

Count: Number of messages received with this identifier (no remote frames) since last user reset (done with [image])

RTR-Per.: Period of time between the reception for the last two remote frames

RTR-Cnt.: Number of remote frames with this identifier


The Transmit list

The Transmit list contains messages, that are transmitted by the PCANView in reaction to different events. The messages are sorted in the order of creation. The same identifiers may be shown several times in the send list, e.g. when messages with the same identifier but different contents are sent alternately.

The Transmit list

Meaning of the columns:

Message: Identifier of the CAN message, hexadecimal format, range from 0 to 7FFh for 11 bit identifiers and from 0 to 1FFFFFFFh fro 29 bit identifiers (CAN specification 2.0b)

Length:	 Data length code of the message (range from 0 to 8)

Data: Values of the messages’ data bytes (up to 8) or the text Remote request, if a remote frame shall be sent

Period: Period of time between the last two message send events. If, at creation of the message, the period was set to 0, the text Wait is shown. In this case the message has to be sent manually or is sent automatically after a matching remote frame has been received.

Count: Number of messages sent with this identifier (no remote frames) since last user reset (done with [image])

Trigger: Reason for the last sending of the message. Possibilities are:

Manual: Manual sending by the user pressing the space bar.

Time: Period of time has passed for periodical sending

RTR: Remote frame has been received before

To create new transmit messages, see Editing the Send List.


The Toolbar

Via the buttons of the Toolbar the most important functions of PCANView can be quickly accessed. The functions of the buttons in detail:

Button	Description	Alternative
	Quit program	Program | Exit
	Reset the CAN controller, delete the Receive list and reset the Transmit list	Program | Reset
	Connect to a CAN hardware	Program | Connect…
	Insert a new transmit message into the transmit list	Transmit | New...
	Open the online help contents	Help | PCANView Help
	Display general program information, copyrights etc.	Help | About


The Status bar

The status bar of PCANView

The status bar continuously displays general information. The field on the left hand side shows the name of the CAN hardware (including the Baud rate) to which PCANView is connected. Two error counters are displayed in the next fields:

Overruns:

If the CAN controller is receiving that many messages, so that the hardware interrupts can not be handled anymore, this field displays the number of missed messages. Possible cause could be a computer, that is too slow.

QXmtFulls:

The driver is not able to send all messages to the CAN controller in time. This happens when the sending buffer of the controller is full. Possible causes can be a low Baud rate, high bus load or an error on the bus. This error occurs with delay, since the sending buffer has to be filled totally.

The next field to the right in the status bar is normally empty but can contain additional error status indications in short form:

BUSLIGHT:

The CAN controller indicates a ‘light’ error on the bus. (more than 96 error points according to the amount of messages that were sent or received).

BUSHEAVY:

The CAN controller indicates a ‘heavy’ error on the bus (more than 127 error points according to the amount of messages that were sent or received). Possible causes can be a hardware, that is not connected correctly to the CAN bus or a wrongly setup Baud rate.

BUSOFF:

The CAN controller has switched to the status ‘Bus-Off’ because a heavy and continuous error is existing on the bus (255 error points have been reached). The controller has been reset by the driver. A possible cause can be a short circuit on the bus.

QOVERRUN:

The internal work rate of the application is not fast enough in order to handle all messages that have been received and been written into the buffer by the driver.


Editing the Transmit list

Menu commands and key-shortcuts

In order to edit the transmit list, following key-shortcuts and menu commands are available:

Transmit | New...	Create a new transmit message. The editing window for the message is shown. Note: PCANView for PCI CAN card, PCANView for CAN Dongle and PCANView for ISA CAN card can contain only 3 messages in the transmit list !
Transmit | Delete	Delete the currently selected message from the send list.
Transmit | Edit...	Edit the currently selected message.
Transmit | Clear all	Delete the whole send list.
Program | Reset	Reset the message counters and reset the connected CAN hardware. Delete the receive list.
Insert new messages

Press the [image] key to add a new message to the Send List or press the [image] key to edit an existing message. In both cases the Message Editing Window will be displayed.


The Message editing window

Every parameter of a CAN message can be edited in the Message editing window.

The Message editing window for transmit messages

Following information is shown:

ID: This is the CAN identifier (hexadecimal format) of the message to be created.

Length: At this place the Data Length Code can be specified. If the message is a Data Frame, the number of data bytes is defined here (0 to 8). If the message is a Remote Frame, the number of data bytes for the requested message is defined here.

Data: The data bytes of the message in hexadecimal form.

Period:	 The duration of an interval (in milliseconds) for periodic message sending. If the message is to be sent manually or only as an answer to received Remote Frames, a ‘0’ has to be entered.

Extended Frame: This option has to be activated if an Extended Frame shall be created. Extended Frames are CAN messages with 29 bit CAN identifier according to CAN specification 2.0b.

Remote request: This option has to be activated if a Remote Frame shall be created. In this case the entry fields for the data bytes will be hidden.


Enter the CAN identifier for the message you want to send into this field (hexadecimal notation).


Enter the number of data bytes the transmit message should contain into this field or click the up/down buttons to select the number.


Enter the data bytes (0-7) for the CAN message into these fields, in hexadecimal notation.


If the CAN message shall be sent periodically, enter the time interval for sending into this field (in milliseconds). Enter 0 if the message is to be sent manually or only as an answer to received Remote Frames.


To specify the transmit message as a Standard Frame with 11-Bit CAN identifier, uncheck this box. To specify the transmit message as an Extended Frame with 29-Bit CAN identifier, check the box.


To specify the transmit message as a Remote Frame, check this box.


Receiving CAN messages

After PCANView has been successfully connected to a CAN hardware, all CAN messages on the bus which pass the message filter of the CAN controller are shown in hexadecimal notation in the Receive list.

The message filter can be configured in the Connect to CAN hardware dialog. For details on how the message filter of a SJA 1000 CAN controller works, please refer to the Philips SJA 1000 data sheet.


Sending CAN messages

CAN messages can be sent to other CAN nodes by creating a new transmit message in the Transmit list. See Editing the Transmit list.

After a transmit message is created, the message will be sent either periodically or can be sent manually by the user, according to the configured send period.

Sending messages manually

The message which is marked with he selection border will be sent after the key [image] was pressed on the keyboard. It is also possible to send the message with a double-click at the respective message in the ‘Message‘ column.

Sending messages periodically

A message will be sent periodically if the send period is configured greater than 0 ms. To change a manual message into a periodic message, press the [image] key while the message is selected to show the Message Editing Window. Then enter the desired send period and press OK.

Moreover, messages in the transmit list will be sent automatically to answer received Remote Frames. See Answering Remote Request messages.


Answering received Remote Request messages

In case of receiving a Remote Frame, PCANView checks if matching messages exist in the transmit list according to the CAN identifier. If so, the found messages are sent as an answer to the remote request (RTR). In the send list the send reason (‘trigger’) is marked as ‘RTR’.

Note: RTR messages in the transmit list will never be sent as an answer to received remote frames.

The Data Length Code of a received remote frame is not taken to decide which data frame messages to send as an answer. Only the CAN identifier must match.


The Client menu

The Client menu offers the following commands:

Connect

Connects the client to a CAN hardware.

Reset

Reset the CAN controller, and clears the Receive list and resets the message counters of the Transmit list.

Exit

Quit the program.


Client Connect command

This command opens the Connect to CAN hardware dialog.

Shortcut

Keys: Ctrl + C


Client Connect command

This command opens the Connect to Net dialog.

Shortcut

Keys: Ctrl + C


Client Reset command

Resets the CAN controller, clears the Receive list and resets the message counters of the Transmit list.

Shortcut

Keys: ESC


Client Exit command

Quit the program.

Shortcut

Keys: Alt + F4


The Transmit menu

The Transmit menu offers the following commands:

New

Create new transmit message.

Edit

Edit a transmit list message.

Delete

Delete a transmit list message.

Clear all

Removes all transmit messages from the Transmit list.


Transmit New command

This command opens the Message Editing Window to create a new transmit message in the Transmit list.

Shortcut

Keys: Ins


Transmit Edit command

If a message is selected in the Transmit list, selecting this menu item opens the Message Editing Window to edit transmit message parameters.

Shortcut

Keys: Enter


Transmit Delete command

This command deletes the selected CAN message from the Transmit list.

Shortcut

Keys: Del


Transmit Clear All command

Removes all transmit messages from the Transmit list.


The Help menu

In the Help menu the following commands are available:

PCANView Help

Open the PCANView Help contents.

About

Display information about the program.


PCANView Help command

Open the PCANView Help contents.


Help About command

Display information about program.