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.

Back to FAQ overview

More in General

Article last edited on Article first published on
2021/​04/​28 2017/​01/​03
Sub­mit a sup­port request

More con­tent on that topic

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.

https://​gemac​-fieldbus​.com/​e​n​/​s​u​g​g​e​s​t​e​d​-​b​i​t​-​t​i​m​i​n​g​-​a​n​d​-​b​u​s​-​l​e​n​g​th/

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.

https://​gemac​-fieldbus​.com/​d​e​/​s​c​h​u​l​u​n​g​en/

The 10 CAN commandments

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

https://​gemac​-fieldbus​.com/​e​n​/​t​h​e​-​1​0​-​c​a​n​-​c​o​m​m​a​n​d​m​e​n​ts/

Why mea­su­re physically?

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