Using TinyCAN Plugin

Overview of how to use the TinyCAN plugin.

The TinyCAN plugin encapsulates the low-level API to work with the MHS Elektronik CAN adapters.

Note

The TinyCAN adapters use virtual serial ports. To communicate with TinyCAN adapters in Linux, the user must have appropriate access rights. Usually these rights are given to all users in the group “dialout”.

Creating CAN Bus Devices

At first it is necessary to check that QCanBus provides the desired plugin:

if (QCanBus::instance()->plugins().contains(QStringLiteral("tinycan"))) {
    // plugin available
}

Where tinycan is the plugin name.

Next, a connection to a specific interface can be established:

QCanBusDevice *device = QCanBus::instance()->createDevice(
    QStringLiteral("tinycan"), QStringLiteral("can0.0"));
device->connectDevice();

Where can0.0 is the active CAN interface name. TinyCAN currently only provides the interface can0.0, which maps to INDEX_CAN_KANAL_A in the TinyCAN plugin.

Note

The function availableDevices() currently always returns one device “can0.0” as there is no way to detect the available CAN adapters for now.

Note

Only the USB adapters are currently supported by this plugin.

The device is now open for writing and reading CAN frames:

QCanBusFrame frame;
frame.setFrameId(8);
QByteArray payload("A36E");
frame.setPayload(payload);
device->writeFrame(frame);

The reading can be done using the readFrame() method. The framesReceived() signal is emitted when at least one new frame is available for reading:

QCanBusFrame frame = device->readFrame();

TinyCAN supports the following configurations that can be controlled through setConfigurationParameter() :

Configuration parameter key

Description

BitRateKey

Determines the bit rate of the CAN bus connection. The following bit rates are supported: 10000, 20000, 50000, 100000, 125000, 250000, 500000, 800000, 1000000.

TinyCAN supports the following additional functions: