AJK101:
What exactly is the difference between can open and can ?
CanOpen is a protocol built on top of CAN (usually). It is a higher level protocol. This is much like how Zigbee is built upon 802.15.4 or WiFi is built upon 802.11 or how TCP/IP can be run over ethernet. Imagine CANOpen is TCP/IP and CAN is ethernet. You run CANOpen over CAN. You can easily get all the information you ever wanted on CANOpen by using Google.
CANOpen is a kind of large thing to implement. You don't want to have to reinvent the wheel on that one. So, it pays to start with something existing and make it work with what you have. Here's a promising link:
Any takers? 