Yep, that fixed it. NICE!

Note: This means that whenever we get one of these breakout boards we will have to make sure to flash it with the latest firmware BEFORE cutting that trace. And remember to reconnect the trace if we need to flash it again.

I was already on my way there, having noticed that the BlueGiga dev board schematic has special circuitry which disconnects its UART if no cable is plugged in to its USB port. You beat me to it!

I has also found this in the BlueGiga docs and was trying this but it didn't help: "The hardware flow control is enabled by default. HW flow control can be disabled in HW by connecting UART_NCTS to GND and leaving UART_NRTS floating."

I had also tried ENABLING the RTS/CTS lines to the UART by soldering their jumpers (which are disconnected by default). Also didn't help and actually prevented any serial communication from working at all.

Thank you so much! :-)
_________________________
Tony Fabris