Waveshare’s “Isolated RS232 / RS485 / CAN / CAN FD Expansion Board For Raspberry Pi” kit transforms your Raspberry Pi 4B or 5 into an industrial computer with a DIN rail or wall mount enclosure.
The solution also provides access to isolated interfaces, including two RS485, RS232, CAN FD, and CAN Bus interfaces, as well as 7-36V DC input through screw terminals. The complete solution also benefits from the Raspberry Pi’s Gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports, and full-size HDMI port (via adapter), as well as support for Raspberry Pi HAT and PCIe expansion boards for NVMe SSD, an additional GbE port, 4G LTE/5G cellular, etc…
Specifications:
- Compatible SBCs – Raspberry Pi 4B and Raspberry Pi 5
- Host interface – SPI + UART
- Isolated industrial interfaces via screw terminals
- 1x CAN FD with 5kbps ~ 8 Mbps baudrate via MCP2518FD + MCP2562FD chips
- 1x CAN Bus with 5kbps ~ 1 Mbps baudrate via MCP2515 + SN65HVD230 chips
- 2x RS485 with 300 bps ~ 921600 bps baudrate via SC16IS752 + SP485 chips
- 1x RS232 with 300 bps ~ 921600 bps baudrate via SP3232EEN chip
- Expansion
- Optional NVMe, Ethernet, USB, 4G/5G through PCIe interface (Raspberry Pi 5 only)
- Raspberry Pi HAT compatibility through 40-pin GPIO header (note: partial due to height restrictions and potential interference with SPI/UART)
- Misc – “Eco-friendly” plastic case with support for wall-mount & rail-mount installation
- Power Supply (one or the other)
- 5V via USB Type-C port on Pi5 Connector Adapter (B)
- 7-36V DC wide voltage input via screw terminals
- Dimensions – 154.6 × 83.7 × 59 mm
- Weight – 323 grams (kit without Raspberry Pi)
Software-wise, the kit is supported by Mike McCauley’s C library for Broadcom BCM2835, the wiringPi library, and various Python packages. You’ll find the schematics (PDF), RS-485 and CAN bus code samples, and instructions to get started on the wiki.
It’s far from the first Raspberry Pi industrial solution, but most are complete Raspberry Pi CM5-based industrial PC or controllers, although there are a few Raspberry Pi 5 industrial computers. The Waveshare kit enables users to convert an existing Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 board with RS232, RS485, and CAN Bus interfaces, a wide input voltage range, and a DIN rail enclosure at a relatively low cost.
Waveshare sells the “Isolated RS232 / RS485 / CAN / CAN FD Expansion Board For Raspberry Pi” kit for about $60 on AliExpress, $68.99 on Amazon, and $54.99 on the company’s online store.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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