Overview

This CAN-SPI board employs Microchip's MCP2515 stand-alone CAN controller and MCP2551 high-speed CAN transceiver ICs and communicates with microcontrollers using SPI serial bus, making it ideal for adding CAN to PICs that do not feature an on-chip CAN controller. The board is designed to plug onto MikroElektronika's EasyPIC6 and BIGPIC6 development boards and PIC-Ready1 prototyping board.

MCP2515 Stand-Alone CAN Controller

The MCP2515 at the heart of the CAN-SPI add-on board is Microchip Technology's stand-alone Controller Area Network (CAN) controller that implements version 2.0B of the CAN specification. It is capable of transmitting and receiving both standard and extended data and remote frames. The MCP2515 has two acceptance masks and six acceptance filters that are used to filter out unwanted messages, thereby reducing the host microcontroller's overhead. The MCP2515 interfaces with PICs and other microcontrollers via an industry standard Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI).

MCP2551 High-Speed CAN Transceiver

Microchip's MCP2551 also used on the CAN-SPI add-on board is a high-speed fault-tolerant CAN transceiver that serves as the interface between the MCP2515 CAN controller and the physical bus. The MCP2551 provides differential transmit and receive capability for the CAN controller and is fully compatible with the ISO-11898 standard including 24V requirements. It will operate at speeds of up to 1Mb/s.

Features

• Based on Microchip's MCP2515 stand-alone CAN controller IC with SPI serial interface.
• On-board MCP2551 CAN transceiver.
• Connects directly to MikroElektronika's PIC development and prototyping boards.
• Use with any PIC or other microcontroller with SPI interface.
• Provides screw terminals for easy connection to CAN network.
• Supported by code library and example programs supplied with MikroElektronika's mikroBASIC, mikroC and mikroPascal PRO for PIC compilers.