PEAK-System Forum

Hello everybody,
I am new to PCAN-Explorer 6 (currently using a trial version). While I could call support and ask for help I think my issue might be of interest to other users thus I share my question online.

TLDR
Task: export trace signals of multiple transducers of the same type whilst maintaining the connection between message and device under test to csv
Issue: best I could get is one column per signal and transducers but there's no evidence in the csv which column belongs to which sensor

I am using PCAN-Explorer 6 for logging the messages of multiple transducers on four busses (PCI-Express Card) of the same type: they all respond to a global request on their bus. The content of the messages received is of the same type (e.g. temperature). I always need to know which temperature belongs to the respective device under test. If I stick to the trace the message origin is easily identified by the senders CAN-ID. I then use a script (Scilab) to sort all messages and calculate the values from hex representation.

I set up Signals with the symbol editor to translate my transmits into human readable values. It's great for quickly checking on the values on the transmit/receive panel and I can use the existing DBC for my signals.

Finally I wanted to export the signals instead of parsing the trace. While there is a functionality in PCAN-Explorer that let me do this, I struggle with the exported signal <==> transducer relation.

In my first approach I

1. defined global signals
2. created one symbol for all transducers CAN-IDs
3. attached the signals to my symbol

In the resulting csv export I see all signals from all transducers mixed in one column.

In my second approach I

1. defined global signals
2. created individual symbols for each transducers CAN-ID
3. attached the signals to each symbol

In the resulting csv export I see all signals from all transducers in individual columns.
But which signal belongs to which transducers? How can I maintain the CAN-ID relation?

Please clarify on best practice here, as I mentioned, I am new to PCAN-Explorer and would love to improve.

You need to create individual signal names directly in your symbol definition.
Simply do it for ones Symbol (CAN-ID) save it with the Symbol-Editor and edit the file (text_based) manualy to paste / copy the block and change the naming for your need. Then you have Signal Information that show you which "transducers" create the signal.

Thank you very much for your quick reply.

While the proposed workaround does the trick in a way, it is not a satisfying solution to me.
I lose all comfort from Signals global definitions and have to copy/edit/paste for a hundred devices. Of course I could write a script for this, but already finding all attached CAN-IDs is a real pain with so many devices.

Maybe somebody comes up with a more practical solution?

How should this work ? if you need seperate Info for every Signal, then you have to add this info ?
But also check the Online help for this features:
Options - General - Signals--> select the prefered signal name display mode - maybe this is enough for you to solve your problem.

How should this work ?

I don't know, that's why I was asking the experts.

if you need seperate Info for every Signal, then you have to add this info ?

I was hoping that I don't have to add this information manually because it is already there. In my trace I can see the CAN-ID and the Symbol in each line and thus might also be accessible by the PCAN-Explorer at the time of export.
An option like "split signals by CAN-ID" plus "add CAN-ID to signal name on export" would be a great addition.

But also check the Online help for this features:
Options - General - Signals--> select the prefered signal name display mode - maybe this is enough for you to solve your problem.

Unfortunatley it is not the representation in PCAN-Explorer that I need to change, it is the representation in the exported csv-File. This seems to be unaffected by the setting you're referring to.

OK - we have checked it and the Symbole File Name, the Symbol Itself are not included when export.
We will add this to one of the next release.

Great news, thank you very much for the quick response.
Have a nice day everybody in Darmstadt!