cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Hi, I am an assistant professor at Dept. of EE. I tough embedded system courses with Nucleo-64 F401 board. I want to use the newer evaluation board for the course which has a CAN controller. Is there a recommendation for it? Thanks

JPARK.42
Associate II
 
10 REPLIES 10
Javier1
Principal

do you need the builtin canbus transceiver also?

we dont need to firmware by ourselves, lets talk

If possible, it's the best option. However, I can use the external transceiver.

More important one is the budget which is less than 200$ / EA.

200$is more than enough i believe.

I dont know any stm32 official board with builtin canbus transceiver. Maybe some ST employee should answer your question.

If i were the one choosing i would pick the latest version of their nucleo-64 f401 board and two of those cheap canbus transceivers.

The entire setup shoulnd cost more than 30$ per student (cheaper if you do big orders)

we dont need to firmware by ourselves, lets talk

Thanks for the quick response.​

One problem is that there is no built-in CAN controller in STM32F401xE (MCU of Nucleo-64 F401 board). That's why I am looking for the different evaluation board.

Paul1
Lead

1. Get some CAN analyzers.

  • Seeed works and low cost (on Digikey): https://www.seeedstudio.com/USB-CAN-Analyzer-p-2888.html
  • None of the CAN Analyzers I've used had a very nice UI, so...
  • Recommend that first thing you do is program your Demo board to be a CAN Analyzer, outputting deciphered packets on UART and USB VCP, and allowing single char typing to trigger different CAN Tx packets (This is a useful project students can keep in their own toolkit, my EE work term students have done it).

2. We used NUCLEO-L476RG(STM32L476RG) for CAN experiments.

  • We now have custom PCB with CAN using STM32L496, upgrade from L476
  • We switched from STM32F4 to L4 series because the older F4 didn't have DE for RS-485
  • The STM32L476RG-Discovery has lots more, but costs more.
  • Check latest available demo boards (Digikey, Mouser...).

3. FYI

  • I find it very useful to pair a breadboard with a Nucleo, and have students (and myself) wire & test circuits like CAN, USB VCP, etc. before ordering PCBs, even new EE's should still learn to breadboard, and pairing with a demo board means breadboard freedom, less flakey wiring, while still getting latest tech/MCU.
  • Add some buttons and LEDs on breadboard just so they get a clue of real life circuits (Debounce, MCU pin current limits, etc.)
  • And this set of ancient ref material is great for simple getting started (Engineer's Notebooks):

http://www.ebook3000.com/Engineer-s-Notebook-II--A-Handbook-Of-Integrated-Circuit-Applications_93703.html

http://thelukens.net/science/electronics/Engineer%27s%20Mini-Notebooks/

Paul

This is a very interesting board, i migth buy some

we dont need to firmware by ourselves, lets talk

Thanks for the information! This is a cheap and an interesting board! I will check it out.

Good information! Prototyping is important technique to the engineer. I will check those boards also. I appreciate your help.