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Protofusion Labs

793 orders since Apr 16, 2014

Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America

Ships from United States of America.

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Overall Rating:

Review Breakdown

5
7 4
8 3
2 2
0 1
0

Average Ratings

Product: (4.94)

Documentation: (4.12)

Shipping: (4.82)

Communication: (4.41)

All Reviews

Chase | Feb. 11, 2019

Solid Purchase for Intermediate/Advanced Users

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

Here's my review, followed with some feedback for possible improvements:

HARDWARE: The fit and finish for the assembled board is quite excellent. The silkscreen is reserved for labels that the user needs to know (pinouts, the function of LEDs, etc.) and doesn't show the part designators, which is kind of a nice touch. The solder joints all look textbook (correct amount of solder, good reflow settings, etc.). The micro USB connector also wisely has two tabs that go into the board for mechanical strength and looks like it will be fairly robust.

SOFTWARE/FIRMWARE: I wasn't able to get the stock CANable firmware to work with can-utils on my setup (xubuntu in a virtual machine) despite following the instructions. However, the candleLight firmware worked instantly and it was very simple to flash it following the instructions on the CANable website: https://canable.io/getting-started.html#alt-firmware

FEEDBACK ON POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS:
SOFTWARE/FIRMWARE: 1) Documented API/drivers for Windows, 2) Windows compatible Python library, 3) support for Busmaster. These would really push this up to be my hands-down go-to CAN-USB adapter. I'm fine with running linux in a VM for myself, but I have a need for a CAN-USB adapter that customers can use to configure devices themselves with a GUI and update device firmware via a CAN bootloader without having to use linux or spend hundreds of dollars on a CAN adapter.

HARDWARE: The only hardware suggestions I have is 1) to include labels for the jumper pins on the bottom side of the board as well as the top that includes some sort of boxing to indicate which jumper position does what (this understandably may be difficult to do given the small size of the board), and 2) mounting hole features like the isolated version has would be nice to have, although it's understandable that they're not included to maximize the number you can get out of the panel.

Neiko | Oct. 16, 2018

It did the job

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

It's a good tool for reading can messages but for sending a lot of can messages at a quick speed this is where you will overlord the buffer on the device

Amanda | Sept. 29, 2018

great product

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

Started interests in the Vehicle's CAN bus and this tool was instrumental in getting me on there easily
all I need is support for 83.3k

Devin | June 12, 2018

Works perfectly, very satisfied

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

That pretty much says it. Its a nice design and works great. The product's website has all the info I needed to get up and running fast.

Alonso | May 27, 2018

Great tool

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

Take around 1 day to learn to use,was used for diagnose an automotive set of switches with excellent results,running smothly without issues into raspberry,python tools are amazing working with this gadget,size of pcb is tiny and very handable,i recommend as a bench and design tools for every project using CAN and UDS Protocol.

Faraz | May 10, 2018

Great when used with the candlelight fw on linux!

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

I have 3 of these and it works amazingly but only when I reflashed them with the candlelight fw. Using slcan the performance is questionable at best under Linux and the device would frequently stop working.

Christian | April 25, 2018

Simply rocks!

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

The hardware is rock solid. I actually ordered 10 for my team and they are in use daily!

I just wish *somebody* had a 3D printed case for them

Kyler | April 11, 2018

It works!

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

I have a bunch of other CAN interfaces and all of them are (much) more expensive than the CANable. I usually use a Kvaser Leaf Light HS but it requires a special driver that's a pain to install on a Pi3.

I ordered some of the CANables not expecting much but I'm impressed so far. I especially like the CANtact library for direct Python usage without messing with drivers or the SocketCAN interface.

Now to find a case for it...

Michael | Feb. 5, 2018

Incredible product!

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

The CANable is an amazingly reliable, easy to use, fun, useful and accurate product! The features, size, and price make CANable the best CAN interface to use for your personal, and professional projects...

Mykola | Dec. 7, 2017

Perfect device!

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

- Works as expected
- Top quality of manufacturing
- Short but ample and understandable description
- Fast shipping

Dan | Oct. 17, 2017

Received goods in Excellent Condition

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

Received the goods in excellent condition with no problems crossing the border into Canada
Looking forward to experimenting with the units

Ivan | July 5, 2017

Nice gadget

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

One has to be careful wiring this thing to the car. Canable has 4 terminals: canh, canl, ground, +5v. Only canh and canl need to be wired to the OBD2 connector if that's what you are doing. I initially connected canable ground to obd2 signal/chassis ground and that really made me and my car freak out. It somehow recovered after throwing a couple of error codes.

Daniel | Feb. 8, 2017

Functional option for CAN sniffing on various platforms

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

I have prior experience using Kvaser and Vector hardware to interface with CAN. Unfortunately I am not in a postion to purchase one of these devices for myself. The CANable has worked well to log CAN traffic on my car, and will talk to a CAN arduino shield that I have connected it with. The CANable itself is very simple to use, any issues that I have had so far are entirely due to my lack of experience with SocketCAN. A cheap arduino clone with a minimalist CAN shield will run about the same price as this, but I feel that the CANable is still a better option.

Steffen | Dec. 19, 2016

Best CAN- Device :-)

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

Regarding price, size and usability the CANable is the best USB to CAN Adapter I've seen. The tiny PCB has all connections it needs, and firmware-wise we moved away from the original slcan to an gs_usb driver (https://github.com/nexulm/candleLight_fw), which has the advantage that the bus parameters can also be changed after first initialization (in opposite to slcan) through the normal socketcan api. So since a few days the device is now in testing, and up to now is works as it should without any problems.
So I can recommend the CANable to everybody who easily wants to connect his socketcan environment via USB to any can bus around.

(the ranking for documentation & Communication are only placeholder, as we both didn't need)
Avatar
Response from Protofusion Labs | Dec. 24, 2016
Thanks for the review Steffen! I just tried out the candleLight firmware on some CANables, and it works great. Having direct kernel support without SocketCAN is awesome. I'll add the candleLight firmware to our documentation soon!

Todd | Dec. 13, 2016

CANable works great with our LabVIEW programs

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

We developed LabVIEW programs to talk to the CANable board over the VirtualCommPort at 115.2k and it works great.
The blue status light blinks every time a CAN message comes in. This thing is compact and fast!
techmor.com

Bill | Dec. 8, 2016

Test use, a more robust firmware update works well

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

I evaluated one of these for use in an industrial control related application. The specific use is for temporary connectivity for testing and setup. Due to this special environment I wrote our own driver interface directly using the text string command set. It worked flawlessly when connected to a known good CAN bus. That was the only issue, "when connected to a known good CAN bus". During test and setup the CAN bus may be down. To solve this problem I have pushed out a firmware update having an added command to get the CAN port bus state so I may discover soon enough that the bus may be down and so force restart CANable. Problem solved. I have sent this update back, Ethan plans to test and incorporate it. I have the update posted on my website, www.electronics-software.com, available for download as well. I also have created some detail documentation of the text string command set and reply content, included in my update. The company I am doing this for plans to deploy in the field service area.

John | Sept. 12, 2016

Tiny, works great

For CANable USB to CAN Bus Adapter

I used 4 of these in a USB hub to record data from my car's 4 CAN buses simultaneously. It works perfectly (it basically shows up as a USB serial port, and then the SLCAN encapsulation on top of that - you can use canutils or just read the ASCII serial output directly depending on what you want to do), and I was able to capture all the data with no dropped packets.
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