I can't seem to get the AVR Dragon to see my 328p. It always tells me that the voltage is off what it expects, but I am using external power (and it is well within the voltage range). So I'm stumped. I think that I will have to end up using the Arduino as the ISP again. I already got that to work when I uploaded the bootloader. And yes I am aware that I am entirely a noob. Triple checked the pinout, verified the voltage, still not talking. I'll go back to what I know works. My instinct says its the Dragon, and I've got no money to replace it now anyway. My other guess is that I fried my ATMEGA's. Learning experiences don't have to be expensive to hurt. I'm hoping that isn't the problem.

The datasheet for the RTC tells me that the crystal will not oscillate if the ground plane is not run under the pins for the crystal. I'm guessing it is a noise issue? So I need to either protoboard it or spin a couple of little breakout boards. And I am leaning more toward spinning a couple of boards for it. I eventually want to make a desk clock out of a VFD I got from Noritake-Itron and would like to use the other RTC I bought (and I really want someone to make a module so I can easily use WWVB for a stupidly accurate clock).

Strangely, I am looking forward to coding for the RTC. I have to learn how to use I2C and it will be my first time using the interrupt pins. It will require a lot of rewriting the timing functions as well, which taught me a HUGE amount the first time through. The alarm feature of the DS1337 should make it so I could use the sleep function in the Arduino in between the shutter events which would be a huge boost for the battery life. I've also decided the solar panel is overkill. The only big (ish) current drain is the LCD and I have it written to turn off the backlight ten seconds after the last button press. Upon reflection it would be nice if the first button press only turned on the backlight and didn't count for anything else. And the strategy is coming to me as I think about it...