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CAN-Do! NET Controller

A Ready to use AMSAT-CAN Multiple Module Controller

Software by

KC0FTQ

Learning Offline features

CAN-Do! NET Controller Website Copyright © 2007, by Stephen M Moraco, KC0FTQ
E-mail:
kc0ftq at AMSAT dot org

Microsoft, and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of
Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Visit our CAN-Do! Project website at http://can-do.moraco.info

Site updated: 4/24/2007 2:50 AM

This page provides a quick walk-thru of the main features of CDNC when used in offline mode to review collections of saved packets.  With CDNC you can review packets captured by CDNC or by UHU (our original AMSAT CAN test application used primarily with the Lawicel CAN232 Serial to CAN adapter.)

Viewing saved packet sets in offline mode

CDNC Installs with a pair of saved packet logs, one from UHU (.can file) and one from CDNC (.cap file).  Let’s explore more CDNC features after loading the CDNC example packet set.

Open Packet Log

· From the File menu select Open… to get to the “Open CAN Packet File” dialog.  NOTE: This dialog defaults to the directory just above where the example files have been installed “My Documents\My CAN Logs”.

· Double-click on the Examples directory.  Now you should see the file CANpackets-060416-2032.cap  Note that this file name indicates the date and time the file was created (-YYMMDD-HHMM.cap). Select the file and press [Open] to open this packet log.

Overview Tab

· You should now see three Widgets appear in the overview tab: Widget #33,  Widget #30 and Widget #59.  As you look at these three Widget panels you can see that the icon is slightly different for each.  This is meant to be a quick means to identify the mode for which the Widget is configured. The name of the mode is shown in the pane as well as the version of the firmware loaded into the Widget.

· There are two more artifacts of interest in the Widget panel. The [v] menu pull-down and the [Show] button.  With this [v] menu you can include this Widget in the heartbeat poll, or exclude it.  You can also control the state of the Widgets power to its attached Module.  It is the [Show] that takes us to the next part of our tour. Press the [Show] button for Widget #33.

   Widget: Control/Status Sub-tab

· You’ll see that a new tab has been created “Widget 33” and the interface has now changed to be five sub-tabs under the Widget 33 tab.  The first tab [Control] is currently selected and we now see the control/status page for #33.

· The last control packet set to Widget 33 in this log has Module Power enabled so looking at the [Power] button in the bottom left corner we see the associated LED lit.  We also see at the top-right corner a recessed status indicating that “Power is ON”.

· Let’s look at the categories of controls and indicators on this page. To the left we have the Controls—DDIGITAL OUTPUTs  (All LED Buttons) with a panel indicating what the configure payload will look like with these control set as they are.  On the middle of the page we see the Digital INPUTs (currently all off).  In the Column to the right we see the power indication text followed by 5 voltage readings with 3 more readings further down the column.  The final three readings (from top to bottom) show the current power draw (amps), followed by the Bias Voltage and finally the current Module temperature.  This column turns out to be showing us the state/interpretation of all 8 analog channels.
Press on the [Water-fall Log] tab to continue our tour.

   Widget: Water-fall Log Sub-tab

· The water-fall log is a processed view of the CAN traffic to/from this Widget.  When a configure packet writes new OUTPUT values and/or POWER state to the Widget, the Widget then responds with both the Digital INPUT values and the Analog INPUT values. This log shows the configure and the associated response packets all as one line.  This make it fairly easy to see changes in any values while the log is scrolling past us.  This log is named for the visual effect created by these numbers scrolling by. They appear to be a water-fall.

· For convenience in locating which packets are involved in any one line you can double click on a line and the packet log will open and be positioned to the configure packet associated with this line. The AN03, AN47, and optionally the IN07 response packets should be just below the highlighted configure packet.
Press on the [Counters] tab to continue our tour.

   Widget: Counters Sub-tab

· Widgets have internal error counters as well as device configuration onboard. The counters page provides a means to ask the Widget for this information and have it displayed via the [Read Counters] button.  These counters can be cleared so this page also allows the user to request a counters-clear by checking the  “Clear Counters after next read” Check-Box.
Press on the [WD Log] tab to continue our tour.

   Widget: WD Log Sub-tab

· Widgets have an onboard Hardware Watchdog.  Whenever the widget resets and it determines that the reset was due to the H/W WD then it writes a new log entry to EERAM. This Watchdog Log page allows the entries to be dumped from this EERAM and displayed upon request via the [Read Log] button.  This WD log can be cleared so this page also allows the user to request a WD Log clear by checking the  “Clear Log after next read” Check-Box.
Press on the [Analyzer] tab to continue our tour.

  Widget: Analyzer Sub-tab

· This feature is not yet implemented.  Although, you can see all the bus symbol names for this Widget mode.  This display ultimately will provide a waveform view of all of the digital INPUTs, OUTPUTs, and for all ANALOG channels.
 

Wrapping up our Offline Tour

This completes the tour of the offline mode Widget specific pages for a Standard Mode Widget.  The sub-tabs for the Multiplex-Mode or Byte-pipe-Mode widgets are mostly similar except that the [Control] tab is unique to each mode and the Water-fall Log is formatted differently for each mode. To view these differences go back to the Overview tab and click on the [Show] button for one of the other modes.

Now that you’ve seen the offline mode tour you’ve got a great feel for what can be learned from any one widget.  If you wish to review how CDNC can be used to interact with Widgets on the CAN bus, please see the “Tour with CAN Devices” web page.