Hi again,
Sorry for the lack of details - that post was a tad rushed. Anyway, down to business. In answer to your question, yes, my project requires 12V. I am powering LEDs off of a transistor that will have the supply voltage of 12V, so that it can sustain a bright enough light when wiring them in series. I could wire it to 10.5v, but what would be the purpose of that? Why not just stick to 12v?
I will also be using a PIC to drive this all. I got a few PIC16F628A's, and I haven't had a chance to take a look at the pin diagram yet, but I'm guessing they require a 5v supply. I'll just drop a 5v regulator. I was taking a look at your WinPicProg page, and I was wondering, what exactly is PortA and PortB? You didn't really explain what they were... Are they just what one side of the PIC is connected to, so you can make another external board with the LEDs or LCD display or whatever you want to use to connect the main board to.... an expansion port?
But I digress. I'm guessing that the whole thing should probably run off a stable 12V supply, I don't know how sensitive the transistors are, I'm guessing they don't like voltage fluctuations too much. I know for sure that the PIC doesn't appreciate voltage spikes and sags, so the regulator is a must.
What do you think? I've never done this before, so any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again,
--mindctrl