Welcome to panda

panda is the nicest universal car interface ever.

It supports 3x CAN, 2x LIN, and 1x GMLAN. It also charges a phone. On the computer side, it has both USB and Wi-Fi.

It uses an STM32F413 for low level stuff and an ESP8266 for Wi-Fi. They are connected over high speed SPI, so the panda is actually capable of dumping the full contents of the busses over Wi-Fi, unlike every other dongle on amazon. ELM327 is weak, panda is strong.

It is 2nd gen hardware, reusing code and parts from the NEO interface board.

Usage

To install the library:

# pip install pandacan

See this class for how to interact with the panda.

For example, to receive CAN messages:

>>> from panda import Panda
>>> panda = Panda()
>>> panda.can_recv()

And to send one on bus 0:

>>> panda.can_send(0x1aa, "message", 0)

More examples coming soon

Software interface support

As a universal car interface, it should support every reasonable software interface.

• User space (done)
• socketcan in kernel (alpha)
• ELM327 (planned)
• Windows J2534 (planned)

Directory structure

• board -- Code that runs on the STM32
• boardesp -- Code that runs on the ESP8266
• drivers -- Drivers (not needed for use with python)
• lib -- Python userspace library for interfacing with the panda
• tests -- Tests and helper programs for panda

Programming (over USB)

Programming the STM32

cd board
./get_sdk.sh
make recover   # initially
make           # future

Programming the ESP

cd boardesp
./get_sdk.sh
make

Debugging

To print out the serial console from the STM32, run tests/debug_console.py

To print out the serial console from the ESP8266, run PORT=1 tests/debug_console.py

Safety Model

When a panda powers up, by default it's in "SAFETY_NOOUTPUT" mode. While in no output mode, the buses are also forced to be silent. In order to send messages, you have to select a safety mode. Currently, setting safety modes is only supported over USB.

Safety modes can also optionally support "controls_allowed", which allows or blocks a subset of messages based on a piece of state in the board.

Hardware

Check out the hardware guide

Licensing

panda software is released under the MIT license unless otherwise specified.