INTRODUCTION

CANBus is a communication protocol originally built for the automotive industry; it forms the literal communications backbone of all modern vehicles. It’s simple to implement, using only two wires, but powerful: it supports up to 127 individual nodes, individually-addressed & broadcast messaging, message prioritization, and variable speeds up to 20Mbit/s.

One of the most common implementations of CANBus is in vehicles – via the OBD-II port. OBD, or On-Board-Diagnostics is a standardised interface, allowing direct access to a vehicle’s communications network. Since 2008 – CANBus is the standardised communication protocol.

CANBus is everywhere – not just in vehicles. It’s found in battery controllers, 3D printers, elevators, medical equipment, aviation, maritime and agricultural equipment. If the requirements are robust communications, it’s probably CANBus.

The ElectronicCats CANBus Module for Flipper Zero, with its accompanying Flipper App, allows you to get hands on with CANBus. It has full low-level tools to send sniff, log, and replay CAN messages, and higher level tools for interacting with vehicles via the OBD2 Scanner function.

If you’ve worked with CAN before, you know that there are dozens of half-finished, semi-abandoned tools and products, or non-cross-platform expensive tools. The Flipper CANBus module solves all of these problems.