Andyturk, thanks for the tip. I am not using the INT line at all(which is an output) at this point, and it is unconnected.
The AD0 line is tied to ground.
I can see that each I2C clock 0-->1 and 1-->0 width is approx 1.3 uS, so that's pretty close to 400KHz baud that I want.
The MPU-6050 and 16F886 are only separated by 1-in of wiring of Clk Dat line each.
But as I said, right after resetting the chip after power-on, there is no *ack response when the first operation with the device after resetting/initialization, is setting SEN=1 and then issuing the correct MPU6050 device address on the I2C bus.
In any case there is only one device connected to a 16F886 I2C pins and thats the MPU-6050 acclerometer module.
Could it be that I added 10K pullups to +5V. 16F886 Vdd=5V and (oops!) the MPU6050 and its I2C Clk and Dat lines are at 3.3V?
If there was a bus collision with the SDAT line then the 16F886 could try to dump >25mA into the MPU6050 Dat pin at +4 to +5V.
I read on some blogsites that even if the chip VDD is rated at 6V max that this kind of mixed 3.3V / 5V works without a problem..could be bad info!
Izzat the Zap Fact? Things are looking suspicious, the SDAT line is steady +4V, so looks like I've zapped the SDAT pin on the MPU6060 because the Clk pin remains at 3.3V peak when at its high level??