Modern heavy-duty vehicles and industrial equipment often contain dozens of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) communicating over an SAE J1939 network. During manufacturing, every ECU must be verified before it leaves the production line. Whether the product is an engine controller, telematics unit, instrument cluster, display, gateway, data logger, or sensor…
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J1939 Reverse Engineering: Decoding Proprietary PGNs and Unknown CAN Messages
By Wilfried Voss on June 24, 2026
If you spend enough time working with heavy-duty vehicles, agricultural equipment, construction machinery, or industrial engines, you will eventually encounter proprietary J1939 messages. At that point, many engineers ask the same question: Can I reverse engineer a J1939 network? The short answer is yes—but only to a certain extent. Before…
How to Develop J1939 Software Without Access to a Vehicle
By Wilfried Voss on June 17, 2026
If you are new to SAE J1939 development, you may believe that access to a truck, engine, generator, or agricultural machine is required before you can write any meaningful software. While eventually you will want to test your application on real equipment, the majority of J1939 software development can be…



