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CAN Bridge

The CAN Bridge is the piece of hardware that turns a single USB connection into a shared CAN bus every other device connects to. It's required for any setup with more than one device — see Architecture for why the system is shaped this way.

What it does​

  • Presents itself to Windows as a single USB-CDC serial device — no drivers to install beyond what Windows already provides.
  • Translates every frame between SimLinkHub's serial protocol and the CAN bus at 500 kbps.
  • Injects 12 V onto the bus over the same cable run, so downstream devices don't need their own separate power wiring.
  • Sends a heartbeat so SimLinkHub always knows the link is alive, even when the bus itself is quiet.

Do I need one?​

If you're only running a single PRD-225, no — the PRD-225 can act as the bridge itself over USB. Once you're running more than one device, you need a CAN Bridge (or a PRD-225 in hybrid mode) to fan the bus out to everything else.

Firmware​

Open — see the STM-Can-USB-Bridge repository. Runs on an STM32F072.

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