I mounted the circuit into the final enclosure, this thing is going to look awesome when it's finished, however...

I took a couple of months off the project, I couldn't find the time around the holidays and what not.

I also put together a power supply built up from a 12v supply, the replacement LTC... board from when I cooked the first one in the summer, a volt/amps panel meter and a couple of pots. I characterized it with my meters (the current is significantly over reported) and tested short circuits to make sure the current limiter was working, and then I used it to power my new design.

The boards came in yesterday...

I put one together hooked it up and poked it a little, and it looked like it was in the static sense working. I programmed the uC with the same code as I had on the previous board, and after a short while, I got "the smell". So I flipped the power switch (the hand is never far from it during early development) and started to think about it...

So I figured out my PWM issue...

The PWM control registers have a feature that requires them to be "unlocked" before writing to them. There is a config bit that turns the feature on and off. Needless to say, I flipped the configuration bit and it started working.

At the moment I am configured for 9 bit resolution, from the scope, that gives me 76kHz, if that isn't fast enough then I will go to 8 bit, and double the frequency, but that's something to look at once I understand how the regulator section responds.

After a long break during which time I designed a buck-boost section for the circuit board, and took a vacation. I am back onto the project.

So once i realized the necessity of the buck boost I went about drawing the circuit and laying out the board, with the help of various websites I got the circuit mostly done. Then came the need to calculate the necessary capacitors and inductors... The numbers I came up with were HUGE! I means really big! and big things usually come with a big price tag. I really needed to get them under control.