sbrown:
I know your recent suggestions are all about not using the 5V source or a pin set to HIGH. You suggested putting a resistor in series with the 5V when I first posted my pictures back in post 33, sorry for the confusion. I thought I would try this since it wouldn't require any changes to my code.
In post #36 I suggested putting a series resistor on each of the wires that connects to the Arduino input pins.
What that means is a series resistor goes between each Arduino input pin and the wire it connects to on the cable.
It does not mean putting a series resistor on 5V before it feeds/connects to other things.
Playing with the arduino is helping me learn. I tested my arduino with my old code, and I learned that the input pins don't work as I expected. That's good to know. My understanding of Arduino and electrical concepts is lacking, as I've mentioned before. That's why I'm on this forum and I'm online looking up the things you've mentioned, because I don't understand the terms you're using and I'm trying to figure it out.
I get it. And while I absolutely abhor it, even the Arduino founders encourage a leap before you look mindset of experimenting without understanding how things work; they call it "tinkering".
The trial and error methodology can be used as a method to learn things, but as you have seen it can also be time consuming and expensive.
And in some cases it shouldn't be done do to potential dangers.
I find it much more efficient and cost effective in the long run to spend a few hours or even days studying and learning how things actually work, prior to experimenting. It can also help avoid the crash and burn type of events you experienced.
IMO, one of the biggest issues with the trial and error methodology is that that in many cases it doesn't help learn how things actually work, but rather pushes the experimenter to a solution based on the conclusion that their particular test environment appears to work. And I specifically point to the phrase "appears to work", since by the very nature of trial and error experimentation, there is often not enough understanding of the test environment by the experimenter to evaluate if the test environment truly works or is just appearing to work temporarily.
All that said, it can still be lots of fun.
Just be prepared to blow things up, if you are not going to spend the time up front to gain some knowledge about how things work before trying things with the Arduino.
--- bill