Is that a code concern? For that matter, are there any known code issues with any of the AVR digital IO pins (aside from 0 & 1)?
I've spend inordinate amounts of time perusing the RPi, AlaMode and Uno schematics over the last many months for various reasons, and there are some
potential conflicts with the AlaMode digital IO, beyond the obvious 0 & 1 being the hardware serial link to the RPi.
For instance, IO 3 is connected to the DS3231 RTC chip INTn/SQW pin - an output that can be configured in one of three mode: a square wave of settable frequency, an interrupt when the time matches an event register, or it can be set to do nothing. Two of those settings would conflict with using that pin for pretty much anything. I'd have to dig into the RTC support for the RPi to see if it enables the RTC to do anything with its output.
Then there are the SPI pins: SCK, MOSI and MISO, on digital IO pins 10, 11 and 12, that connect to the RPi SPI pins through a level shifter on the AlaMode (to get from the AVR 5V domain to the RPi 3.3V domain). If the RPi SPI is enabled I'm pretty sure those pins wouldn't be usable for meters.
So the pins that should be reliably available - from a hardware perspective - are 2 and 4 through 10 (8 total). The SPI pins are
probably ok unless someone wants to use the RPi SPI for something. IO 3
might be ok - I should park a scope on it for awhile and see if it ever wiggles.
Anyway...None of this - or the choice of IO in my case - have anything to do with the problem I had, or the problem I have. I used the above "safe" subset of pins in a few combinations, but it wasn't until I changed how the database related to the AlaMode did I get signs of life. And the current problem is in the database as well.
I'm betting a start-from-scratch database will fix me right up, but with all the pour tests this afternoon and evening I'm going to put that off to tomorrow
Cheers!