my project Capacitive Sensing LED dimmer 12F1822 via PWM

[Heckler]

Wow, I didn't know they made voltage regulators with that low of idle current.

My intention was to be able to leave the ckt connected to a, say 7 Ah, gel cell battery for at least a few weeks.
I will probably add to the circuit board a jumper or small switch to completely disconnect the ckt for storage. Even 1 ma will use up 8.76 Ah in a year. Probably not much more than the self discharge of the batt, though.

For a hobbyist though the junk box is your friend. That regulator is a bit esoteric and the shipping cost would drive up the cost for just a few items.

If you study Zener regulator ckts they are somewhat inneficient if your current needs vary by much. This ckt would get below 2 volt if the current draw gets over 1ma with a 12V source. Since my ckt pulls a bit less than that I am OK. Actually now that I look at it I may want to lower the 10K resistor to say a 5K or so. It's all just experimentation at this point.

If one wants to be able to draw more current for the other PIC pin outputs then it quickly becomes necessary to use a lower value resistor.

I'm sure a good electronics engineer could shred this idea for any kind of commercial application.

Mostly I was determined to get the Cap Sense working and be able to evaluate its suitability for other applications.
Sometimes I just enjoy the challenge of figuring out these Little PICS and what they are capable of. They truly are amazing what is in these little packages for such a few dollars.

For example the APFCON register. It allows you to move the function of some of the PIC peripherals from one pin to another if needed!! (which I did need to do with the PWM from A.2 to A.5)