Quote Originally Posted by dragons_fire View Post
the motor controller has a reset line on it that needs to be held high, so i used a pin from the pic, so i can turn it on or off if i need too, and i think hte pic is probably going low on that pin
Good idea...keep pinging that pin in your program to help force it high if need be.

do i want to make all the unused (almost all of them right now) inputs or outputs?? they arent tied to ground or anything, because they will eventually be used.
Don't really know on that. Almost anyone of them could be causing a problem. One thing is almost for sure though, if a pin is an output, it generally can't cause an interrupt.

i would prefer to get rid of as much magnetism and electrical noise as possible by physical means, and not just block it out with programming..
But the extra programming doesn't cost anything in hardware!