I have a J1939 Device that has no documentation available. It is however on a network which only consist of that device, and a display which shows readings from that device.

We would like to tap into the network and obtain the data for remote transmission. Is there a way to sniff the packets and get all the information we need in order to properly set up an RTU to read from it?

I'm not familiar with J1939 so bear with me.
We have no idea what the ID's or Registers are, but we can use the values on the display to help us decode what the values should be, since the monitor shows the Label Name and value.

I would buy a Serial to Can adapter for my laptop and a packet sniffer SW package.

Any recommendations on what software to purchase, and what my challenges may be?

What about different flavors of the protocol?

 

There is a big chance that a CAN network analyser with J1939 interpreter already diplays all what you need. If not, it will list at least what happens on the CAN data link layer. Together with the information your device specific display is showing it should be not that difficult to find the places where the information is coded.

On of the analyzers supporting J1939
http://www.port.de/engl/canprod/sw_report.html

Best regards,
Heinz

 

Thanks for the pointers.

Richard