the board is done now, and some of the stuff is mounted to it. im using the pic18lf6585, which is the low voltage one (but should work from 2 - 5.5V) and i have a 5V 5A regulator. when i connect the battery without the chip in its socket, everything works fine, as soon as i stick the chip in, the PIC and the Regulator heat up... i havent let the smoke out "yet" but they did heat up lots, and might not be any good anymore... i checked to see if i had Vss or Vdd backwards (so when i put the chip in, it would short out) but everything looks good.





if anyone has any ideas of why its doing that, please let me know.. heres a pic of the bottom of the board on my first attempt with the toner transfer method. the top didnt turn out as good, but there is only 3 traces on the top, and they werent affected.


my last question for everyone is: For PICs that have multiple Vss and Vdd's, do they all need to be connected (they are on this board), or are they connected internally?