I’ve got 30 generators in close proximity. Will be installing a dynagen controller that can broadcast the CAN data. Need a solution to connect to the CAN bus and push data.
What development board do you recommend? Anybody want to take a shot at this project
Hi @thepeachfarmer Can you share the documents of controllers? RAK is working on RS485 to LoRa/LoRaWAN Industrial device that soon will be released. As two protocols are very close, this may be your solution.
This is the controller we are using. There are also other controllers that work Caterpillar engines. The following is from the datasheet regarding communications:
SAE J1939 (Tier II, III, IV)
Isolated RS485 (Slave Modbus RTU), 2.5kV surges
In most of these cases… there is “public” CAN data that external 3rd party devices can read. For example, in the CAT application, a technician can install a 3rd party monitoring screen that reads the CAN data and displays things like RPM, oil pressure, coolant temperature, etc. In addition there may be some “writable” parameters.
One key to note: The device can be powered from the CAN connection. This would be very useful.
Question. I’m not very familiar with Modbus. But I do understand some things. These serial connections seem to unload long strings of data with no “break”. Because LoRa is message based and is limited on message length… how are you guys dictating when the string is broken to be wrapped in a LoRa message?