> Hi, thanks for the advice, i have set it up to use 4 AAA batteries but
> it does pretty much the same as the potential divider (wondering what
> the difference is)

Just a note of caution Jason. A new alkaline will be up around 1.65V,
so 4 will be a Vcc of 6.6V, which is too high for guaranteed proper PIC
(5.5V max). NiCd would be OK, even at a shiny new 1.4V each. You'd
still be better to use a regulator, specifically a low dropout (LDO), as
LDOs can regulate an input-output voltage difference much smaller than
standard linears like the 78xx/79xx. If you want a quick fix, try a couple
of silicon diodes in series with the battery +ve. That would knock the 6.6V
down to 5.4-ish, and at least get the PIC running more safely

One major difference, in your case at least, between a regulated voltage
and a divider is that the divider can supply only limited current if you're
using 'reasonably' sized resistors. 'reasonably' in that lower value
resistors
can pass more current, but so much battery power will be wasted

At first glance your delay loop looked long. It is, around 29ms. That
would be at least one problem. This loop here is 1.5ms at 4MHz
(including the call). Use Stopwatch in MPLAB or your editor, if it
has one, to check. Doing it by hand, adding up cycles and loops, should
be fairly simple though

ms15     bsf pulse
         movlw   d'43'
         movwf   del1
lp1      nop
         nop
         nop
         nop
         incfsz  del1
         goto    lp1
         bcf pulse
         return

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