Hi,
thanks very much for the valueable input!
I tried that yesterday night, but unfortunately didn't have success. I'm wondering if my breadboard connections might have an issue. Power is fine, otherwise the wipers wouldn't move to default settings and TSSOP board soldering was also crosschecked. Will check breadboard again today evening and post a pic with connections. It shouldn't be that hard to get this small thingy running 
Any other suggestions what I could have done still welcome. Turnaround with Arduino is so great when comparing this to my old days in PICs (many years ago). Works like a charm - I'm completely impressed.