Surviving 1 second without battery power

[peu]

[edit] Maybe I need to check for POR=1 and BOD=0 to know for sure that a BOD reset happened

I wasn't that far with this late edit

This works really fine, but with a 10 µ (MICRO) F ...and a 12F683

so , some current draw improvements are still to add ...

NOTE: All Outputs are Mosfet Buffered ( BS 170 ) ...

Alain

PS: You didn't use your brain too much, here ....

What brain?

Well I implemented your program and it worked, but the cap value was way too high, so I started lowering till I found a ridiculously low value...

Then I examined your code, removed some chunks and commented it:

@ device pic12f683,INTRC_OSC_NOCLKOUT , wdt_on, mclr_off, protect_off, bod_on

' I use picbasic to compile!!

 '@    __config _INTRC_OSC_NOCLKOUT & _PWRTE_ON & _WDT_ON &_BOD_ON & _MCLRE_OFF & _CP_OFF
 
 
OSCCON = %01100110
CMCON0 = %00000111     ' Disable comparator
VRCON  = %00000000     ' disable
ADCON0 = %11100000
ANSEL  = %10000000

'       I/Os
gpio   = %00000000
TRISIO = %00000000      ' no inputs 

' SECTION? what is this section used for?
' BOD var GPIO.0
' POR var GPIO.1

   
' IF PCON.1 = 0 and PCON.0 = 0 THEN BOD = 1	'BROWN OUT RESET BIT
' IF PCON.1 = 0 THEN POR = 1	'POWER ON RESET BIT

' PAUSE 1000  this pause cannot be used in a flashlight environment
'  SECTION?  what is this section used for?

GPIO = 0

if PCON.1 = 1 AND PCON.0 = 0 then		'PCON.0 = BOD ;PCON.1 = POR
          
    GPIO.2 = 1          'GPIO.2 green led PIN6 shows a BOD state
    PAUSE 1000          'I don't have patience :-)
    'PCON.0 = 1         ' not needed since you set this again below
    gpio = %00000000
    
endif

'PCON.1 = 1      replaced with one line :-)
'PCON.0 = 1
PCON=%00000011

GPIO.1 = 1 'normal state red led
While 1
Wend

END

and if a picture is a 1000 words, we could say that a video is like 1000 pictures, so 1000x1000=1000000 words... WOW... I just wrote a book take a look at this video: http://www.veoh.com/videos/v6415763hQHpjMDy

As you see, the cap is reaaally small, the green led shows BOD condition, and red led is normal operation. The diode you see there is not used. Also I left all the unused pins floating

When I used large value capacitors, everytime I did a power interruption no matter if it was 1 second or 10 the BOD led turned on.

I wonder why you had to use 10uF

Also assembled a proto PCB using the 1st schematic to start testing a real world application.