This page takes you from a bare device to live values on screen. The program is offline-first: steps 1–3 need no hardware at all, and only step 4 touches the device.
To open the serial link, choose Tools → Connection Settings…:
- Port: lists every serial port with its Windows description. The ST-Link virtual COM port is preselected automatically when its description contains "STLink". Click Refresh after plugging the cable in.
- Baud rate: defaults to 7372800 (CAN Triple default — ST-Link V3). The field is editable, and slower standard rates down to 115200 are listed, but the device firmware runs its UART at 7,372,800 baud — an ST-Link V3 is required at that rate.
- Click Connect. The label below the buttons changes to "Connected to COM5 @ 7372800", and the main window's status bar shows "Connected: COM5 @ 7372800" on the right. The button becomes Disconnect.
- Click Test to confirm the device answers: it requests the device status and shows uptime, per-bus receive/transmit counters, and how many messages, signals, math channels and User Conditions are active.
Note: You do not have to visit this dialog first. Any Online command that needs a device — Send, Get, Monitor Channels and the rest — opens Connection Settings automatically when no link is open.
If the port refuses to open or the Test fails, see Troubleshooting.
Choose File → New (a new, empty document is also what the program starts with). Then define what travels on each bus:
- Connections → Communications… opens the Communications Setup dialog, with one tab per bus (CAN 1 / CAN 2 / CAN 3) and a Passwords tab for the configuration's four Message Passwords. Set each bus's mode and rate, and add sections — the receive and transmit messages — with New… or Import DBC…. See Communications: Messages & Sections and DBC Import.
- Each message carries channel rows that place a channel's bits in the frame. Channels are created as you need them — there is no predefined catalogue. See Channels.
- Optionally add on-device calculations from the Calculations menu: Math Channels, User Conditions, Constants, Lookup Tables, Up/Down Counters, Timers and Integrators.
The window title shows the document name with an asterisk (*) while there are unsaved changes. Save with File → Save; see Configuration Files (.ct3) for the file formats.
Run File → Check Channels. It reports Errors, Warnings and Info items; Send Configuration refuses to run while any Error exists, so it is worth fixing them before going online. File → Config Summary… produces a printable report of the whole configuration. See Validation & the Config Summary.
Choose Online → Send Configuration (F5). The confirmation lists what will be written — message, channel and calculation counts, and the bus settings being applied — and asks for a Configuration Title, which is stored on the device. Two options are offered: Lock this configuration to this device (only on firmware that reports a chip ID) and Reset device after sending.
The transfer is verified by reading the device's tables back, and the configuration is saved to flash as part of the send, so it reloads at every power-up — there is no separate "save to flash" step. Details, including access passwords and the related Get, Verify and Upload commands, are on Online: Send, Get & Flash.
Online → Monitor Channels… (F3) shows live channel values; Online → CAN Viewer… (F4) shows raw bus traffic. See Monitoring Live Values.
Online → Device Status… is the quick health check: uptime, per-bus counters, active table counts, firmware protocol version, device ID, which access passwords are set, and the unit's firmware licence.
Online → Get Configuration reads the device's tables into the editor, replacing the current document (it warns first when there are unsaved changes).
Warning: Send Configuration replaces the device's entire configuration. If you meant to keep what the device is running, Get it into the editor and save it before sending something else.