Improved Raspberry Pi-based fanless CANbus controller

Saelig offers the emPC-A/RPI3 Industrial Controller based on the ubiquitous Raspberry Pi 3. It includes many extra features that expand the usefulness of the Raspberry Pi computer for industrial applications, such as a CANbus interface. An enhanced version of the tried-and-tested emPC-A/RPI2, the device has been designed especially for automation and control applications. The new system delivers increased performance, and it also has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi interfaces for mobile communication that can be used to create networks for mobile machines. Raspbian Jessie Light is the recommended operating system, and, like the previous model, the new version also offers CODESYS control software compatibility as well as CANbus and other communication features. The computer has shown that it is suited to industrial demands when fitted with Janz' additional resources. The Janz additions provide a 24V/15W power supply, an optically-isolated CAN interface, a real-time clock, digital I/O, and an additional RS232/RS485 interface. It is supplied in a robust, lightweight (1lb) EMI-proof plastic housing (4" x 3.8" x 1.2") that is suitable for desktop, wall, or DINrail mounting. The fanless device is powered by a quad-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, with 1GB DDR2 RAM system memory, and an externally-accessible microSD card slot for holding the operating system and driver software. The input power supply required is 9-32VDC , and the interfaces provided include: 10/100Mbit/s Ethernet, WiFi/WLAN, BLE, HDMI graphic interface, 4 x USB2.0, RS232, CANbus, RS232 (Rx, Tx, RTS, CTS) switchable to RS485, 4 x digital inputs (24VDC), 4 x digital outputs (24VDC).