Specifications

Technical Specifications

Parameter	Value
Operating Voltage	3.3V
CAN Controller	MCP2515
CAN Transceiver	SN65HVD230
RS-485 Transceiver	SP3485
CAN Protocol	CAN V2.0B
RS-485 Mode	Half-duplex
TX/RX Control	Hardware automatic (default) / Software via GPIO 4
SPI Interface	CE0 with GPIO 25 interrupt
UART Interface	/dev/ttyS0 (or /dev/ttyAMA0 on some Pi models)
Crystal Oscillator	12 MHz (current version) / 8 MHz (pre-Aug 2019)
TVS Protection	RS-485 lines (surge / spike / lightning / ESD)
Dimensions	65 mm x 30 mm
Mounting Holes	3.0 mm
Isolation	None (entry-level, non-isolated)
Compatible Boards	Raspberry Pi Zero / Zero W / Zero WH / 2B / 3B / 3B+ / 4B / 5

Crystal Oscillator Versions

Waveshare shipped two hardware revisions with different oscillator frequencies. The correct frequency must be specified in the device-tree overlay or the MCP2515 will fail to initialize.

Revision	Oscillator	dtoverlay Parameter
Current (post-Aug 2019)	12 MHz	oscillator=12000000,spimaxfrequency=2000000
Legacy (pre-Aug 2019)	8 MHz	oscillator=8000000,spimaxfrequency=1000000

Tip

Check the crystal on the front of your board. It is the small silver rectangular component near the MCP2515 and will be marked with either “12.000” or “8.000”.

Protection

The RS-485 transceiver lines are protected by an onboard TVS (Transient Voltage Suppressor) diode. This provides defense against:

• Surge voltages from inductive loads sharing the same cable run
• Transient spikes from nearby switching events
• Lightning-induced surges on long cable runs
• Electrostatic discharge during handling or installation

The CAN bus lines do not have additional TVS protection on this board revision.

Note

This is a non-isolated design. The CAN and RS-485 transceivers share the Raspberry Pi’s ground plane. For applications requiring galvanic isolation, consider the RS485 CAN HAT (B).