PIC Based Web Server by Brendan Horan

A long time a go I brought an electronics kit that when completed allowed me to turn on a AC mains device. Worked via a parallel port and a few opto couplers. So when you made one of the pins on the parallel port go high the circuit would switch on the mains power.

This was used for my HP-UX system since you can not turn it on via serial console. The web console I have can not remote power on the system I own. Normally with the larger HP-UX machines they can turned on and off via the web console. So by setting a pin high on the parallel port I could turn it on and then connect to the web console.

So how is the PIC web server fitting in to this? Well simple the machine that had the parallel port is no longer in my rack, so I have no parallel ports on machines that are on 24/7, this is where the PIC web server comes in.

A few months back my favorite local electrons magazine ran an article on a PIC ( Microchip ds33FFJ12GP201) based web server with the following ability, 4x digital outputs, 4x analog inputs and a RS232 interface to the PIC.

This meets my needs. Its low power, low heat and cheep and supports digital inputs. So I can modify the existing kit to input into the PIC web server. This would then allow me to turn on the power via a web page

This also gives me a good excuse to buy a PIC starter kit from Microchip, since I want to find a way to make use of that RS232 port.

Hear is a shot before I put the lid on. You can find all the images on my flicker.