jCOM.J1939.USB SAE J1939 ECU Simulator Board With USB Port - Firmware Update & Hardware Upgrade

Our jCOM.J1939.USB gateway board is a high-performance, low-latency vehicle network adapter for SAE J1939 applications. It allows any host device with a USB COM port the monitoring of SAE J1939 data traffic and communication with an SAE J1939 vehicle network.

The board supports the full SAE J1939 protocol according to J1939/81 Network Management (Address Claiming) and J1939/21 Transport Protocol (TP). It also provides an extensive programming interface for Windows and Linux/Ubuntu applications, including full C/C++/C# source code for quick time-to-market developments.

Our jCOM1939 Monitor software, in combination with the gateway, performs SAE J1939 Monitoring, Analyzer, and ECU Simulation under the Windows operating system.

The jCOM1939 Monitor Software is a comprehensive and easy-to-use, easy-to-understand Windows software that not only displays and records SAE J1939 data traffic; it also allows scanning the network for existing nodes, simulating an ECU (incl. full node address negotiation features), and responding to data request messages.

Over the years, since the initial release, we have worked on adding features to the gateway's firmware as well as the Windows monitoring software, and as of today, we have released what we consider the final firmware version.

For more information on the newest firmware and its installation, see our Wiki page.

We have tweaked the firmware to manage higher busloads, but there are limits. The current hardware utilizes a UART-to-USB converter, which helped with keeping the hardware costs down but, at the same time, limited the communication speed between the gateway and the host system (usually a PC) to 115,200 baud. Furthermore, we have reached the processor's memory limit, which makes it impossible to add useful features such as timestamping CAN message frames (also restrained by the limited serial baud rate) and the replay of recorded CAN data frames.

Consequently, we have developed a new gateway (the image to the left shows the prototype) in the same form factor as the current board but with a more powerful processor, a USB 2.0 port supporting a higher rate of 480 MBit/sec, a real-time clock, and an SD micro card.

We have successfully tested the hardware, and the current firmware already works on it. However, with the additional hardware features in mind, we are not only planning on the previously mentioned timestamps and replay features. As the integrated SD card suggests, we can also develop a CAN data recording device. Other applications, using the very same hardware, could be a CAN Bus/SAE J1939 simulator, an SAE J1708/J1587 to USB gateway, an SAE J1939 GPS module, and many more.

We are targeting May of 2019 for a release of the jCOM.J1939.USB-X device, replacing the current hardware in the long run, i.e., after selling off the remaining inventory.