I am not the one who originally made this post, but I am in the same situation. I have now built 2 cores. Admittedly, I rushed the first core, but on the second core I took my time. I inspected with a magnifying glass every solder joint. I double checked to make sure I was building the core right, but alas no success. Using a 7.5 wall amp with 500mA I check the core. I put the black lead on the metal tab of the 7805 voltage regulator and with the red leed I check voltages on J2, and the Vdd's of the PIC. All registered 7.5-7.9 volts instead of 5 volts. In addition, when I hooked up my LCD all I get is the backlight and no data. Any suggestions would be helpful. I am very frustrated. JW