Quote Originally Posted by RobertISaar View Post
swapping the IC wouldn't end very happily for a lot of people, SSOP-28 gives me trouble at times and i would like to think my skills are at least average.... replacing the entire adapter could be an issue as well, since one could run into the same problem immediately or in the near future if they don't get one with a FTDI sourced chip.

this is a really bad situation to be in.... i've gotten both legitimate and clone chips from ebay, i IMAGINE a company like mouser or digi-key will have only legit pieces, but any level of supplier after them could have anything on their shelves.
I agree it's not a perfect situation or solution to the problem, the idea was just that if on did find themselves with a bricked FTDI based device that there could be a way to revive it.

I agree on the "who knows what they have" end of things, they all look legitimate even to people in the know, unless you take a close look at them.

perhaps it is time to jump ship off the FTDI path? i'm seeing some interesting uses of some ATTINY and ATMEGA chips that use them to act as a USB-UART bridge.

http://www.obdev.at/Images/vusb/circuit-zoomed.gif

the ATTINY2313 isn't expensive at all.... and would allow for some external a/d to be added in for additional sensor logging.
Hmm, tie pins 2 and 3 together and have a USB to ALDL cable?