This is a python CLI program to configure the ECAN-E01 CANBus to ethernet gateway. I got mine from aliexpress. The configuration software provided by the manufacturer is windows only, so here is my attempt at a cross platform solution. Refer to the manual for how to connect and how to set the DIP switches.

Installing on victron OctoGX

opkg install python3-pip python3-can

TBD: The virtual can interface should be enabled or disabled? If enabled, the venusOS will emit PGNs on it. If disabled, the vcan interface is down at boot time. Need to add some code to bring it up.

ifconfig vcan1 up

Discovering the gateway

ecane01-cli.py scan -n enp58s0f1

Configuration of the gateway

• Read the configuration from the gateway into a TOML file.

ecane01-cli.py readconf -i 192.168.4.101 > config.toml

• Edit the TOML file for your purpose
• Write the changes back to the device. (not yet implemented)

ecane01-cli.py writeconf -i 192.168.4.101 < config.toml

Tricky settings: The configuration application is not very well made and it is hard to know what each settings are for. I was getting problems with the bridge mode working for a few minutes, then no more packets would come from the device. If I change the setting "out time between 2 pack" to 255 I no longer get this. It used to be set to 2, but low traffic might be triggering some timeout condition.

Bridging to a virtual CANBus interface (vcan)

Setup your virtual CANBus interfaces like so:

sudo modprobe vcan
ip link add dev vcan0 type vcan
ip link set up vcan0

ip link add dev vcan1 type vcan
ip link set up vcan1

Then start forwarding the CANBus traffic from the gateway to your local vcan interfaces with these commands:

./ecane01-cli.py bridge -i 192.168.4.101 -p 8881 -c vcan0
./ecane01-cli.py bridge -i 192.168.4.101 -p 8882 -c vcan1

Help

ecane01-cli.py -h

Testing

Easiest test setup is to loopback the CAN1 and CAN2 wires, enable the RES1 and RES2 dip switches. This will make the gateway forward each CANBus frame from one bus to the other. Start the bridge mode as described above. install can-utils with this command:

apt install can-utils

Listen to the vcan1 interface for CANBus traffic like so:

candump vcan1 -a

And generate traffic with the candgen utility like so:

cangen vcan0 -e -L i -I i -v -v -v

TODO

• Finish parsing the proprietary binary content. In the windows configuration tool, you can save the configuration file. The format is almost the same as the network protocol. Just need to figure out the last few mystery bits
• Test with multiple gateway devices on the same network. The scan option currently returns only the first response.