pause puts me in sleep mode

[NavMicroSystems]

EDWARD,

I guess the problem is hardware related.
We would need to have a look at the schematic to further analysis.

Questions:

1. Where does the Solenoid get it's power from?
2. Do you have a Resistor between PortC.2 and the Base of the NPN?
3. Do xou have a reverse Diode across the Solenoid?
4. As your Buttons read "1" when pressed, do yo have PullDown Resistors on the corresponding PIC Pins?

Is this the same strange Board you had the LCD questions on?

[EDWARD]

yes it is the same board witht the lcd. i dont have the schematics for the board. the board has al surface mount components and i am trouble telling what ALL the parts are. i have figured alot out but not everything. i know the hardware will work because these boards have porgrams on them right now and work fine with the old code. i have erased one of them to use as my "test board" and have made no hardware changes.

the designer of the board, as it seems, did many things wrong. the designer

1:did not use a resistor on the soleniads npn base.

2:doesnt have any resistors to the inputs on portB, which cantains most
input buttons.

3: i think that there is a diode across the solenoid though.

4:solenoid is a 5vdc. it is driven by sinking. i got 9 volt going to a Vreg 5+, an that 5+ going to the red wire of the solenoid. the black wire goes to the collector of the npn.

( i am going to make a picture/table. im also going to try and create a schemati for you.)

[mister_e]

probably the transistor in use is a digital type with internal resistor or logic mosfet. that's why you don't have any external resisotr.

no resistor on PORTB... probably the internal pull-ups where in use. I bet the pushbutton are between PIC and gnd!

The major cause, as i suspect, might be the current provided by the power supply, must be unsufficient to make the 5 volt line goes to 3.5 volt. Use another power supply.

[EDWARD]

thanks for your response mister_e. i know that the hardware is sufficient for my purposes, but oddly enough the buttons are actually between 5+ and pic,weird.

also, i bought bunch of 9 volts, and still same problem. this only happens when i use the pause command. if the solenoid is programmed to ONLY BE ON WHEN THE BUTTON(on a different port) IS HELD TRUE, it works fine. but if i tell the solenoid to stay high for 1 seconds (PAUSE 1000) the vdd drops to 3.5. dang!

is it possible that some of the power to "help" drive the solenoid and/or PIC, comes from a data port? conversly, will defining (TRISX) to many pins as outputs (not necessarily HIGH), will draw excesive current?

[EDWARD]

ok guys i made a breakthrough of "KFC snacker size" proportions.

OK so im hungry and not funny. but i am gaining on my pause problem.
today i found out that if i short out portc.2 it will "turn off" my solenoid "driver" the only way for the driver to turn fully off is to short it. portc.2 =0 doesnt go low enough.

secondly, i found out how the driver works. my solenoid red wire is connected to a 5+, and the black wire of the solenoid is connected to 2 transitors in parallel. one of the transiters set the sink bias to make the solenoid "driver" at a 4.4 volts on the ground side, even when portc.2 is low. and when portc.2 goes high, it sinks the solenoid over 5+. thereby fireing the solenoid.

This has led me to beliver that when i ground out the portc.2 pin, which in turn turns off the driving transistor, which turns off the solenoid.

that can only mean that when i put portc.2 = 0 it is not going low enough. how do i make portc.2 less than 0 it really wierd cause as soon as i short portc.2 with my vdd goes back up to 5+.

ive tried swapping solenoids and batteries.

[EDWARD]

my pictures are at:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/edward...bum?.dir=/6008

yo, i took some pics of my board and put them in a yahoo photo album thing. feel free to check em out. basically it shows the pic, the solenoid/batery harness side and a full view. one of the pictures has a mspaint drawing on it. oh yeah the picture i upside, sry forgot to rotate before i started editing.

BTW i think i figured out my lcd probem that was posted in pbc. ill just have to make my own subs and with all the data you great people have given me it should be a snap (oh here i got being all optimistic again)
thanks to whomever sent me to

(lcd HD44780 commands)
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconVall...d/commands.htm

and
lcd.bas example (it will open browser as txt file if u click it)

http://www.melabs.com/resources/samples/pbc/lcd.bas

[NavMicroSystems]

EDWARD,

could you draw a schematic of the "solenoid-driver" part?
It is still not clear to me what this looks like.