Transparent CAN bus isolators for avoiding ground loops

[e100]

My understanding of CAN bus is that ACKs occur within the time span of a single bit in the sending frame so propagation delays introduced by 'transparent' isolators effectively increase the cable length which can be a problem if you are close to the edge of the allowable baud rate/cable length envelope.

This Kemei isolator says the loopback time is 110 nano seconds. https://copperhilltech.com/can-11-can-bus-din-rail-isolated-repeater/

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_5_cable says CAT5 cable has about 5 nano seconds propagation delay per meter, so does that make each isolator equivalent to an extra 11 meters of cable, or are there other things I need to take into account?

Also the isolated output doesn't have a terminal for the isolated ground reference which seems a bit strange. Is that normal?

[Berni]

They are probably relying on the leakage on the CAN lines and the ESD diode to keep the internal isolated ground close enough for it to work. Since its isolated it can float to anything it wants and since its connected to the CAN lines it will float to that potential.

And yes any delay is similar to adding cable length. Due to how CAN works it still needs to get the acknowledge bit in time from behind the isolator. You need something more application specific to avoid that, like a CAN forwarder that treats both sides as two separate CAN network and just forwards any packets it sees onto the other one. The CAN forwarder always acknowledges it so you have no confirmation it was delivered, but it means you can have as much cable length as you want by stringing enough of these.

CAN is not very good for long cables in general. RS485 is more suited for it