Using CAN and RS485 at the same time
The CAN Bus chips use the SPI interface, while the RS485 transceiver chip uses the UART
interface and also two GPIO signals. As long as your program can control GPIO signals for the
RE & DE RS485 receive and transmit direction pins on the RS485 chip it works great.
CAN uses a bus-based communication method, while RS485 uses a point-to-point
communication method. CAN has a higher speed and bandwidth than RS485, but RS485 can
operate over longer distances and can support more nodes on the same communication line
CAN Bus ready is a term used to describe a vehicle headlight, taillight, running light, or turn
signal bulb that can be installed into a vehicle that uses a CAN Bus system for its lighting. You
might see these vehicle bulbs also referred to as a “CAN Bus compatible.
you can parallel a RS485 and CAN transceiver onto the same 2 wire bus. As long as one of them
stays in the idle state and never transmits anything then it is like it's not even there.
The only thing that might get in the way is using the RS485 biassed terminator on a CAN bus.
But you can use CAN style termination on a RS485 bus if you use the transceivers that see 0V
as a idle level rather than wanting to actually see some voltage on there.
RS485 transmitter can be abused as a CAN transmitter by sending data to the enable pin
instead of the data pin.
Receiving CAN with a RS485 receiver needs extra hardware to get decent noise margins.
Provided that both transceivers can withstand the voltage levels imposed by the other bus type
and can have their driver outputs disabled when not in use, the only potential issue I see is the
additional bus load provided by the extra inactive receiver. I'm not super familiar with CAN
transceivers, but low unit load RS485 transceivers are readily available which would help
mitigate that issue. If there aren't a ton of devices on the bus already then one additional
shouldn't be much of an issue? RS485 has a common mode range of -7.5V to +12V, versus
CAN's -2V to +7V, but transceivers with wider withstand ranges are common for both bus types,
so that shouldn't be an issue. Most RS485 transceivers have both driver enable and receiver
output enable pins that would allow you to share the rx line on the host side easily, but sharing
the tx line might be trickier.
It can be made to work, and on your bench it's probably not too difficult, but you will eat into
margins and it's likely you get more errors due to misinterpreted data, due to wonky bits output
to the cable, and the receiver misinterpreting them due to noise.
An alternative you can do is to use both a CAN and an RS485 transceiver and just connect them
in parallel, and only enable the chip you need at some time.
It would be a bit more expensive because of the extra chip, but at least you are not abusing the
chips t send the wrong protocol.
CAN High rises to 3.5V whereas CAN Low drops to 1.5V. This is a differential voltage of 2 volts.
In the event of a transient condition occurring, such as an external voltage spike both CAN High
and CAN Low will be similarly affected.
the RS-485 standard also requires that a compliant driver produce a differential output voltage
greater than 1.5 V with a 60-Ω differential load and common-mode load of 375 Ω from each of
the A and B outputs to –7 V to 12 V.
The definition and model are valid for input voltages from -7 V to 12 V to account for driver
outputs between 0 V and 5 V with up to ±7 V of common-mode noise voltage between a driver
and receiver.
The RS-485 standard specifies a common-mode input range from –7V to +12V and a maximum
ground potential difference (GPD) between a driver and a remote receiver of ±7V. a data link
example for maximum possible bus voltages. In this case the link is an unterminated point-to-
point connection.
All of the original RS-485 transceivers used 5V supplies, which then allows for 3.5V of
“headroom” for the driver circuits. Newer designs for transceivers which operate with 3.3V
supplies require more efficient driver stages, in order to develop 1.5V differential output signals.
An RS-485 network can be configured in two ways: “two-wire” or “four- wire.” In a “two-wire”
network the transmitter and receiver of each device are connected.
