# Python guide

!!! note "Written with the Spectral Micro"
    This guide was written with the Spectral Micro BLDC driver. STEPFOC uses the same CAN commands and the same Python library, so the same code runs on STEPFOC: where the guide says "Spectral Micro BLDC", read "STEPFOC".

More examples are in the [Spectral-BLDC-Python examples folder](https://github.com/Source-Robotics/Spectral-BLDC-Python/tree/main/examples).

## Examples

``` py title="Get_encoder_data.py"
import Spectral_BLDC as Spectral
import time

# Init comms channel 
Communication1 = Spectral.CanCommunication(bustype='slcan', channel='COM41', bitrate=1000000)
# Init motor object
Motor1 = Spectral.SpectralCAN(node_id=0, communication=Communication1)

while True:

    # Send this msg to the motor controller, it will respond with position and speed data
    Motor1.Send_Respond_Encoder_data()

    # Get CAN msg, timeout tells us to continue if there is no msg after in this case 0.2 s
    message, UnpackedMessageID = Communication1.receive_can_messages(timeout=0.2) 

    # If there was a msg unpack it
    if message is not None:
        print(f"Message is: {message}")
        print(f"Node ID is : {UnpackedMessageID.node_id}")
        print(f"Message ID is: {UnpackedMessageID.command_id}")
        print(f"Error bit is: {UnpackedMessageID.error_bit}")
        print(f"Message length is: {message.dlc}")
        print(f"Is is remote frame: {message.is_remote_frame}")
        print(f"Timestamp is: {message.timestamp}")
        
        # Here we unpack the data from the packet
        Motor1.UnpackData(message,UnpackedMessageID)
        # We are interested in position and speed data that was requested by calling Send_Respond_Encoder_data
        print(f"Motor position is: {Motor1.position}")
        print(f"Motor speed is: {Motor1.speed}")

    else:
        print("No message after timeout period!")
    print("")
    time.sleep(1 )
```