i have never seen a case where the protection fuses on a commercial unit were left open. reading has always produced nothing but garbage. they would have to be very foolish or careless to overlook that.
angelosanzeri:
I'm also interested in your discussion, and if that discussion you were doing once will be in another thread I'll follow it
thanks and along with some prompting from a few offline friends decided to follow your advice:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=363772.0
im sure bill as always will get you going again but meanwhile just in case suggest you order a couple more units. if nothing else eliminate any cabling or baud rate issues and never hurts to have backup.