Create your own CAN controller/gateway! For a few bucks ;)

I really loved learning about the whole CAN bus, and it was really fun to discover the car in a new way. Breaking into wires, searching with that oscilloscope. With the right information in the course i found it quite easy to find my way in it.

But after i was able to get to the can messages, i could't really do anything with it. Looked around on the internet, and most things i find are expensive ECU's or PDM, found several other controllers worth hunderds of euros and i didn't know if i could do with it what i wanted.

So i was looking around and found a "Speeduino" ECU, and i already had a Arduino starter pack laying around. and i started searching how this could work with CAN. Being able to program my own unit, with the benefits of CAN, seemed like a whole world opening up again!

After trying with the Arduino, i have been able to make my own controller, filter out the can id's, and which byte to look for in that message. Being able to control relays through the code, i was able to code it in a way to trigger the relays when certain buttons where pressed in the car. And it wasn't even that hard to learn!

So if you want to interact with the OEM Can, with all OEM electronics, and don't want to spend a lot of money. Look into Arduino, create your own controller if you just want to be able to achieve simple small stuff!

I started out with an Arduino Uno, the CAN-BUS shield V2 from Seeed Studio, And the Relay Shield V1.1 from Elecrow. And i made an controller for several lights, and to control the exhaust valve in a certain gearbox mode.

Now i have ordered a Arduino Giga, and i am looking into making my own controller screen, with all the parameters in 1 place (temps, rpms, you name it) and to have a controller to control aftermarket lights, exhaustvalves, rpm led indicators, and much more. You can even make you own parking sensors, temperature sensors. Really endless possibility's!

it's absolutely possible to do so with arduino, i opted for stm32 microcontrollers and the stm32cube hal framework on my projects. arduino framework left me with a lot to be desired outside the main while loop,

while intimidating at first, it's saved me many times over, especially when debugging with openocd.

Would an arduino be used to sniff out the CAN from a factory PCM; and if so, what would I use to translate that between the factory PCM and my Proefi Pro128 ecu.

Pro128 doesn't have any feasible CAN Input capability last i checked. I could be wrong because I haven't focused on them in ages...

While an Arduino and supporting controller + transceivers could be used, it's not the most efficient approach unless there's some software linked to the arduino over usb for sniffing. (the EVTV Due from collin kidder comes to mind..)

The Proefi pro128 had 2 CAN channels. If they are output and input, I don’t know. However I am building a 2010 Ram 1500 using a vvt based 6.4 426ci hemi. I am also using the pro128 as it has the inputs and outputs I want. The issue at hand is I am wanting to integrate the Pro128 in the truck via CAN like you can integrate the pro112 in similar generation dodge challenger/charger with 6.1hemi. The CAN addressing is available in the proefi software. I was told I could do a gateway to communicate between the factory truck pcm and the pro128 if I was able to sniff out the CAN from the factory pcm. I purchased the arduino starter kit and mcp2515. I still need to learn how to use this hardware with SavvyCAN. That being said, I am unsure if this path is a waste of time due to issues like you brought up or other issues Im not aware of. Any help would be greatly appreciated 🤘

you'll likely want to reach out to proefi directly for ways in and out of their box.

Unfortunately proefi is no help. However I did my research and a gateway is possible as the pro128 has a CAN input and output channel. So I think an ESP32 could work, however I have not figured that out yet.