The first “galvanically isolated” product, professional on the world market for Arduino and / or similar !!

or write me: rubinolab(at)gmail dot com

 

It is a “professional” shield complete with all hardware protections with standard CAN pin-out on the DB-9 easy to use.

Why choose it compared to other products? Mainly because it is galvanically isolated, quality, high performance, reconfigurable.

But why do you need galvanic isolation? To operate safely since you usually work on CAN lines with different connected devices. In the event of a malfunction of a CAN device (not isolated), for example a power supply failure or voltage losses that may occur in a working environment due to humidity or rain, it is possible that there is a dangerous voltage for the user on the CAN line. In general, according to the IEC 60479-1 International Electrotechnical Commission, the minimum voltage threshold considered dangerous for a person is 50Vac (AC voltage at 50Hz) and 120Vdc (DC voltage). The most frequent and most important effects that the electric current produces on the human body are basically four and just tens of milliamps are enough to find one of the conditions: Tetanization (> 10-15mA), Breathing arrest (20-30mA), Ventricular fibrillation ( 70-100mA), Burns (> 100mA).

Where is it used? It can be used in many fields, to connect multiple devices with only 2 twisted wires. It’s a Real-Time system, at the speed of 1Mbit / s it is possible to connect lines of 40 meters, while at 10kbit / s lines up to 6 kilometers.

I report some fields of use:

• Industrial Automation, Control, Sensors, and Drive Systems
• OBD II (On Board Diagnostics) Automotive
• Industry 4.0 internet of things
• Building and Climate Control (HVAC) Automation
• Security Systems
• Transportation
• Medical
• Telecom
• CAN Bus Standards such as CANopen, DeviceNet, NMEA2000, ARINC825, ISO11783, CAN Kingdom, CANaerospace

• Technical informations for the right use of the shield.
• Open Source RubinoLAB’s team code examples
• Open Source community support

Thanks to the community support this page will also collect the best Makers project, giving to the Makers community the best code repository and hardware for their projects.

Disclaimer: RubinoLAB cannot be considered responsible for the improper use of the project.

Technical Description

CAN-ISO is a shield isolated galvanically, with protection and filter on can-bus for board Arduino or similar.

In combination with an Arduino board it is a powerful device for the command, test and analysis of a CAN network.
CAN-ISO can be powered by the Arduino board via USB or by an external 12V power supply on the DB-9 connector. The card is always isolated with both the Arduino power supply on the DB-9 connector.

Features

• Fully compliant with the CAN 2.0A & CAN 2.0B Bosch specifications
• ISO 11898-2 (High speed CAN) physical interface
• CAN baud rate adjustable by software up to 1Mbps
• 1000Vrms galvanic isolation barrier
• Bus-Fault Protection of –27 V to 40 V
• ESD protection
• Common Mode Filters CAN
• 120 ohm terminating resistor at CAN node (setup)
• MCP2515 @16MHz
• Circuit Operating Voltage: 5V (3.3V on request)
• Isolated power supplies between board Arduino and CAN-BUS (the device prevents noise currents on a data bus or other circuits from entering the local ground and interfering with or damaging sensitive circuitry)
• Fully compatible with higher level protocols such as CANopen, DeviceNet, NMEA2000, ARINC825, ISO11783, CAN Kingdom, CANaerospace
• Industrial standard DB-9 connector (possibility to supply external to 12V dc)
• Protection inversion of polarity on the DB-9 (supply external to 12V dc)
• LED indicators

Connection

We report the most important connections of the shield “CAN-ISO”. Blue labels are used by CAN-ISO.

Notes :

1. The CAN-ISO Shield contains onboard a internal CAN bus termination that is possible insert or no with pinhead
2. The CAN bus must be terminated with a 120 Ohm resistor, with a single 120 Ohm resistor for short cable lengths (< 2m)
3. For long CAN networks (>10m) & in noisy environments the use of screened, twisted pair wire is recommended.

Compatibility

Device name	Compatibility	Note
Arduino UNO (ATmega328)	100%	tested
Arduino Mega (ATmega1280/2560)	100%	not tested
Arduino Leonardo (ATmega32U4)	100%	not tested

Tests

Several basic tests have been conducted in order to guarantee that the shield is properly working. Tests include clock frequency measurement, power absorption, EMI filter characteristics.

Furthermore other specific tests have been conducted with dedicated instruments or custom hardware. These tests includes:

ISOLATION	up to 1000 V	Isolation instrument: NORMA L.Nr.1806 30303
COMMUNICATION ERROR	more of 10 hours continuous communication	two shields have been used for loopback test

The CAN-ISO Shield have successfully passed all the above mentioned tests!

On-Board Diagnostics (OBD)

 

OBD-II to DB9 interface

This is the standard connection to OBD-II for all vehicles from 2008. For old vehicles or FORD cars the OBD-II pinout may vary and depends on the car manufacturer.

RubinoLAB code example

The first example is the CANINO code. This code transform your Arduino hardware + CAN-ISO to a bridge between the USB serial port and the CAN BUS. The packets are easily readable with a serial terminal, this allow to easily debug the line or write a custom graphical interface with LabVIEW, Python, Processing etc.

For the example: Code configuration and test CAN-ISO

A YouTube video where CAN-ISO communicates with a CAN BUS control unit, using the “CANINO” code and the “LabView” graphical interface:

For use with “professional” graphical interface: CANHacker

Maker’s

To share your project made with CAN-ISO, please send an email to: info(at)rubinolab dot com and propose you idea. If considered interesting, your project can be hosted in the RubinoLAB website or linked to our page.

Where to buy

We have created a first series to meet our needs and those of many makers, while stocks last. If there is further request there will be a further production.

The cost of CAN-ISO (Made in Italy) is 35 euro (only shield).

To buy CAN-ISO: LINK

or write me: rubinolab(at)gmail dot com

Wireless Resonant Inductive Power Transfer for an Ebike Charging Battery

In this page RubinoLab.com presents the prototype and experimental tests of an E-bike 300W battery charger for a cyclo-station based on wireless power technology made for research.

For this project, several scientific papers were written with a mathematical model developed and conducted with performance analysis to determine the voltage transfer function, maximum power transfer capacity, efficiency for different air gaps (1 -3 cm) and misalignments (0.5-1.5 cm).

The resonance frequency of this circuit for wireless charging batteries is 40kHz.
To achieve maximum efficiency and maximum power transfer, work at the resonance frequency.
To evaluate the correctness of the circuit a LabView panel was realized where it was possible to characterize the circuit by varying the frequency between 30-50 kHz on the prototype.

This is a second prototype of the Ebike Charging battery. It is a primary part of the charger. it works at a higher frequency and for the magnetic part has been used a coil of Wurth Elektronik.

The circuit during the tests connected to the electronic instrumentation.

Scientific papers:

1- Resonant inductive power transfer for an E-bike charging station (Journal ELSEVIER)

2- Controller design and experimental validation of a power charging station for e-bike clever mobility (Conference IEEE)

3- Detailed continuous and discrete–time models and experimental validation to design a power charging station for e-bike clever mobility (Journal ELSEVIER)

On this page RubinoLab.com presents several photos of a prototype and experimental tests of a 3kVA bidirectional resonant DC-DC converter, made for research activities.

 

The work was commissioned by AIRBUS, a major European company operating in the aerospace and defense sector, and was part of the doctoral thesis of Luigi Rubino, a member of RubinoLAB. The converter is an evolution compared to the classic hard-switching converters in which we participated in 2008-2009 for a European project called “Moet” More Open Electrical Technologies.

The LLC converter, required many hours of work to develop all the mathematical models before the realization taking into account also the parasitic effects of the components. Furthermore, all the parts that are difficult to find, such as transformers, resonant capacities, high thickness copper PCBs, MOS drivers for frequencies up to 300kHz, measurement and control boards have been realized in our laboratories and compared with mathematical models. The result, the measurements are identical to the simulations.

Particular design accuracy was given to the resonant transformer and to the resonant capacities not found by the component distributors.

Only the magnetic parts were purchased for the transformer, while the coils are suitably machined copper plates isolated from each other.

 

The resonant capacities at the primary and secondary are the most critical components in the system, since they must keep the value stable even when the working temperature changes. A minimal variation in the capacity value varies the resonance frequency of the circuit and therefore we will no longer have the maximum power transfer. The number of SMD capacity to be parallelized was chosen keeping in mind the capacity value and the working current.

 

To evaluate the correctness of the parameters of the entire circuit, a LabView interface was created where it was possible to characterize the resonant circuit by varying the circuit frequency.

Figure shows the prototype during the test phases.

In the video we can see the typical measurements with varying working frequency.

Scientific articles:

1. Complementarity Model for Steady-State Analysis of Resonant LLC Power Converters
2. LLC resonant converters in PV applications comparison of topologies considering the transformer design