Hi All (bob mostly),

Sorry for dropping off for a month on this. I just got overwhelmed with some stuff. I picked back up where we left off tonight and have some things to report. So my little oscilloscope is a total loss I think. I am throwing out all of it's data at this point.

I tried bending more pins off the magical 6116 and found that bending all out except the Vin and GND (pins 12 & 24) still yielded blip free operation. So you must be correct that this chip's capacitance (or something) is smoothing out some kind of problem. To test I took a 47pf cap and ran it across from Vin to GND (Pin 12 to 24) It didn't make the blips go away entirely but it definitely diminished their frequency. I was able to, while holding on notes, place the capacitor and remove it to A/B and I'd say there was a 60% improvement with it in. So there must be some problem down the line somewhere. I guess I need to get my hands on a proper scope and see what's up.

Let me know if you guys have any thoughts.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke