After I fix the fried stuff and switch out the speaker, I will re-run experiments with different set ups to see if the weirdness is still there. The frying came after i noted the weirdness above. I want to see what it does exactly, and I need to write down the exact behavior.Well, if you hooked it up in reverse polarity, you probably fried it.
Didn't think to put in a diode to protect against that. Sorry.
I'm surprised you didn't fry it when you ran it on 17v. It wasn't designed for that much voltage.
You probably fried the LED and the 7805 regulator. Replace the LED and the 7805. Or, you could see if you can get the LED to light up.
If you're getting 5v at the output of the regulator, it's probably OK.
If the LED doesn't come on, it's fried.