24/7 Emergency Technical Support

Services

CAN Bus, Modbus & Marine Communication Networks

Half the 'unexplained' automation problems onboard are not logic problems — they are network problems. Wrong termination, shielding earthed at both ends, one node at the wrong baud rate, a cable routed beside an inverter.

We diagnose and repair at that layer with instruments rather than guesswork: bus resistance measurement, traffic analysis, and identification of the node generating the errors.

Scope of work

  • CAN bus fault diagnosis: termination, shielding, error frames, bus-off
  • Modbus RTU and TCP: addressing, register mapping, timeouts, master/slave conflicts
  • J1939 and CANopen to engines and subsystems
  • Design and installation of automation networks with correct topology
  • Industrial Ethernet, switches, VLANs and network segregation
  • Bridge protocols and NMEA integration where required
  • Gateways and protocol converters to link legacy and new equipment
  • Network topology and node-list documentation

Typical symptoms & failures

  • Periodic communication loss that a restart 'fixes'
  • Values frozen on the screen while the machine runs normally
  • Errors that appear only when a particular motor or inverter runs
  • A node that takes down the whole bus when connected
  • New equipment that will not talk to the existing system

What you receive

  • Topology diagram with nodes, addresses and terminations
  • Bus measurements and error counts before and after
  • Register map for every Modbus interface
  • An extension note — how the next node is added correctly

Equipment & protocols

  • CAN bus analysers and traffic recorders
  • Modbus master/slave simulators and diagnostics
  • Industrial gateways and protocol converters
  • Oscilloscope for physical-layer signal analysis

Frequently asked questions

Why does the problem only appear when one specific machine runs?

Almost always electromagnetic interference or a shared earth. It is solvable, but the solution is in cable routing and shielding, not in software.

Can legacy equipment be connected to a new system?

Usually yes, through a gateway or protocol converter. It is one of the cheapest ways to extend an existing installation.

Do you diagnose remotely?

For log analysis, yes. Physical-layer measurement requires attendance onboard.

Send us the problem

Describe the system, the vessel and what you are seeing. You get back a concrete intervention plan and a defined scope of work.