Cable lengths, stub and drop lines

Recom­men­ded maxi­mum line lengths for the main line and stub lines
baud rate max. trunk line length max. drop line lenght max. lenght of all drop lines max. drop line lenght at mul­ti­port tap max. lenght of trun­kli­nes with mul­ti­port tap (without droplines)
50 kbit/​s 1000 m 50 m 250 m - -
125 kbit/​s 500 m 20 m 100 m 4,8 m 310 m
250 kbit/​s 250 m 10 m 50 m 2,4 m 120 m
500 kbit/​s 100 m 5 m 25 m 1,2 m 66 m
1 Mbit/​s 20 m 1 m 5 m 0,3 m 13 m

The same length restric­tions app­ly in the CAN FD net­work. The infor­ma­ti­on in the table here refers to the arbi­tra­ti­on baud rate.

Article last edited on Article first published on
2021/​04/​28 2017/​01/​03
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Recom­men­ded bit timing and bus length

It is important for the smooth inter­ac­tion of the com­pon­ents – espe­cial­ly when the maxi­mum bus lengths are reached – to use exact­ly the same bit timing in all nodes.

Sug­gested bit timing and bus length

Tra­ning CAN basics

GEMAC offers trai­ning cour­ses on CAN basics in one-day semi­nars. The­se take place at inter­vals at our pre­mi­ses, or at your pre­mi­ses on request.
At the moment they are held in Ger­man only.

Schu­lun­gen

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By obser­ving the most important basics, you can get even com­plex bus set­ups into safe ope­ra­ti­on with suf­fi­ci­ent fault reserve.

The ten CAN commandments

Why mea­su­re physically?

What gain in know­ledge can you expect when you mea­su­re your CAN bus on the phy­si­cal level?