Technical details on the CANbus Communications Protocol using in a GDR UnityX?

[d-jeffrey]

I know others have tried this, I have spent a lot of time on it. Could we get the technical details of the protocol used on the Lippert UnityX? It would be much easier if Grand Design could just ask Lippert to release the technical documentation on how the CANBUS is used on the UnityX devices, than trid to reverse engineer it. Mine is specifically the X180T, but I assume the same protocol details are used by all the X models.

Is that possible? 😕

[TucsonJim]

I know others have tried this, I have spent a lot of time on it. Could we get the technical details of the protocol used on the Lippert UnityX? It would be much easier if Grand Design could just ask Lippert to release the technical documentation on how the CANBUS is used on the UnityX devices, than trid to reverse engineer it. Mine is specifically the X180T, but I assume the same protocol details are used by all the X models.

Is that possible? 😕

This forum is designed for "owners helping owners". GDRV owns the site, but does not participate in the day to day activities. LCI does not participate either. I do not believe that any of the other GDRV RV owners have access to these details. It is likely that the information is proprietary to Lippert. You can try contacting LCI customer service to see if they'll honor your request:

LCI Customer Service: 574-537-8900

Jim

[howson]

d-jeffrey the member here that has done the most work along the lines of your question is bob. Hopefully when he sees the tag he'll chime in. Not sure if he'll be able to add anything.

Howard

[bob]

Well, the route I took was to go after the OneControl cloud gateway and use that as the main inteface into the OneControl environment. The upside to that approach was that in the cloud controller they were running OpenHab on a Raspberry Pi (seriously) and I was able to use the API's in OpenHab to take advantage of the custom modules they had in OpenHab to speak to the CANbus. It works great, as long as you have one of the cloud controllers, which my new Solidude does not....

So, the only option now is going after the CANBus itself - and this is where Lippert will not give details. I have spoken to folks on that side both on the record and off, and they will not supply any technical information, as they consider their implementation proprietary. I assume that this is to ensure that only LCI products can connect to their system... Unfortunately, I have the X1.5 board and it is pitiful - only a few lights, awning, and leveling so there is not a lot for me to go after, unfortunately.

Bob

[d-jeffrey]

Thanks Jim, I did reach out to LCI, with the full expectation to be ignored as Bob said, since they do not want to share any information about their systems. This really works against want I understand is the GDR idea of listening to customers. I have a friend who has a Keystone Cougar which uses a standard published CANbus protocol RV-C, which can be easily leveraged. I guess I'm back to the workbench to dig in and reverse engineer this nightmare.

Slow progress .. anyone wants to watch the paint dry, can find me working here: https://github.com/D-Jeffrey/lippert-canbus/
If you want to throw some ideas in the ring, then feel free to suggestion how this might work... lippert-canbus · Discussions · GitHub

Thanks for the acknowledgement.