MicroChip MCP3901 Eval Board Issues

[Kryten 2X4B]

A while ago Chris Gammell was talking about the Microchip MCP3901/MCP39XX A/D conveters. As I'm wanting upgrade one of my products I thought I'd have a look at the MCP39XX chips and they appear to have many of the features I require and they are 20% of the cost the Maxim part I'm currently using. So I decided buy an evaluation board to test the MCP3901 part for my application, got one from Digikey and from that point things started to go down hill.

I downloaded the data viewing app for Windows from the MicroChip website, and right out of the box the board would not communicate with the Windows app (fail). Then I downloaded the PDF manual from the MicroChip website, as you do when the thing doesn't work and it turned out that manual was for the original version of the board not my Rev 5 (fail). Then other work got in the way and I put the project aside for about six months. Back in January this year  I had another look at the board and tried re-flashing the microcontroller, made no difference. Also tried running the PC app under XP, Win 7, as well as Win 10 and it didn't work under any of them, so I was starting to suspect the board.

So I opened a Case on the MicroChip Support website on 25 Jan 2016, left a comment 15 Feb 2016 that I hadn't had a reply, yesterday 8 Mar 2016 started a conversation with a MicroChip guy. He pointed me in the right direction as far as getting new code to re-flash the eval board which is now working. Soon I should be getting the correct documentation for the the Rev 5 board, which as far as know hasn't been publically available on the MicroChip website but the Rev 5 board has been available for a few years.

Hopefully MicroChip will update their website so other people won't have the issues I've had.