Thanks John. Pieces are slowly coming together.

As a side-note. When I put the whole thing together on the breadboard last night to test the pin 17, 18 issue, I accidentally put pins 4 (MCLR) and 14 (Vdd) to my 12V source instead of the 5V out of the LM7805. Needless to say, the PIC didn't work so well after that. Live and learn, I paid a 1-PIC "stupid tax".

 

I rebuilt the device on the breadboard with pins 17 & 18 wired from 5V source through a switch. With switch closed, the device works normally. With the switch open, the device does nothing. I have no idea why the original designer did that.

So he is actually using them as a digital inputs as I suspected, and the way the original circuit was, it looks as if the circuit is always powered up, but only functions when the switch is closed..... Why he used 2 inputs to verify if the switch is closed??? I don't have a clue, maybe he was having some "noise issues" on one line so he used 2 to verify that the switch is actually closed. is there Anyone here who could translate his project description on the original site the code and circuit came from?? that might help......

Ke5nnt - I would just wire it up the way it works (with the switch) and go with that.... it seems that is how the original designer wanted it to work. Then you won't have to do any changes to the hex code, unless you want to use those 2 inputs for something else.

 

My German is very rusty, but I didn't see anything about those pins in the description. I did the disassembly from the code that is posted on the Dutch site.

John

Edit: Google translate didn't show any mention of the on/off switch either.