This is half question/half cautionary tale.  When I set up my MPLAB
project for the 16F628, either I chose to turn on brownout detection
(BOD) or it defaulted to on.  It's battery powered, using 3x AA for
a net VDD of about 4.5V.

When I switched from using one surplus 7-segment display at low power
(for testing) to my new MAN8610 (very nice .8" digit displays) at full
power with multiple segments, I could not get the PIC to stay on.  In
addition to the normal decoupling (.1u and 1.5u) that I had been using
all along, I needed almost 100uF to smooth the power out enough to
drive the displays and keep the PIC on.

When I finally realized I was hitting BOD, I turned it off, and it works
without the 100uF.  So my question is:  Is this an acceptable solution,
or is the fact that I *would* be triggering the BOD a sign that I can
expect problems anyway?

--
Ben Jackson
<ben@ben.com>
http://www.ben.com/

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