From what I could tell, there simply wasn't any connection between the FTDI chip and the PIC.
IMO, the packaging by Seeed was not up to the job. It was shipped in a flimsy padded envelope, and the thickness of the board padding foam bulged quite a bit. It wouldn't take very much at all to cause any stress/damage to the PCB at all.
But like I said earlier, everything seems to be working now. Love this little board!
I received my Bus Pirate yesterday only to discover that it wouldn't connect. The serial port popped up, but no data seemed to be flowing. I even tried connecting to the Bus Pirate via the PIC programmer, to no avail.
Frustrated, I set about trying to After some probing, I came to the conclusion that a connection between the FTDI and the PIC was bad. On a hunch, I decided to try and reflow the board. After a very nervous 20 minutes, I plugged in my Bus Pirate. The serial port once again showed up. At least I didn't destroy it completely.
After seeing this, I fired up the programmer and proceeded to reflash the firmware. Success!
Everything seems to be in order now. I've successfully updated the firmware and have been able to connect and use the device successfully.
