Wi-Fi Station Power Controller and Reporter (WiSPCaR)

The project is known as WiSPCaR or Wi-Fi Station Power Controller and Reporter which is based on a small PIC12F510 microcontroller.

The PIC12F510 microcontroller can be considered as a complete computer since it contains two A/D converter inputs in a tiny 8-pin chip as well as GPIO pins, RAM, and flash program memory and best of all, it has a very low price. A router is usually used by the Wi-Fi station since they have an available RS232 or console port. An Ethernet is another alternative although it will require a more complex which could increase the cost of the circuit.

The WiSPCaR will not affect the battery life or dimensioning of the power system since the current consumption is around 10mA. The actual current drawn by the PIC is 0.25mA which is obtained from the 5V regulator used by WiSPCaR. If WiSPCaR does not receive a certain code every 3 minutes, a Watchdog timer resets the Wi-Fi station. By shutting the power OFF for 5 seconds, the Wi-Fi station will be reset manually. The source code of WiSPCaR was made from assembler while the PIC assembler implements the software UART.

Rest of the project