looking for pointers, tips, etc...

[Darrel Taylor]

This depends alot on how your keypad is wired, and how many resistors there are in the circuit, but there's a possibility you have a short circuit waiting to happen.

By setting PORTB to either High or LOW states, if you accidently press 2 buttons (on different colums), it put's a dead short across the outputs of the PIC.

Typically, it causes the PIC to reset before it can do any real damage. But over time it will take it's toll on the equipment. Especially the keypad.

It's better to control the TRIS register, so that only 1 column has an active output at any given time.

I know you're trying to do it yourself, but you might want to take a look at ...

keyx.bas - PICBASIC PRO program to display key number on LCD http://www.melabs.com/resources/samples/x1/pbp/keyx.bas

HTH,

[bill12780]

Hello Darrel,

Thank you for the tip. I did realize the short circuit situation and added series resistors in line with the row bits.

However, your tip is better because I can eliminate those resistors and gain some space on the board. controling the Tris register rather then setting bit high or low.

I looked over the code example...I will need to spend sometime so I understand what they are doing. But that does seem more efficent then my multiple "if" statements.

Thanks for your input. I appreciate it.

Best Regards,
Bill12780