This is a followup review post from this one: AVR JTAGICE mkII clone – Review which was a followup from this one: AVR JTAGICE mkII clone
It’s been pretty quiet on the KludgeGuru front for a month while I impatiently waited for my AVR JTAGICE mkII clone to be returned from china. If you didn’t read the two posts linked to above the basic story is I purchased the clone and when I got it the debugging capabilities didn’t work. So I returned it where they were able to repeat the error I was getting and instead of sending me a new one they shipped it back to the manufacturer in China and said it would be 3-4 weeks for repair. 11 weeks later I got it back…now that’s what you call great service. 
Here is the timeline of my correspondance:
January 20th – I shipped the unit back
Vendor (January 23rd) – Hi, I tested your mkii clone and as you said, the debugging mode doesn’t work. I will have to ship it to the manufacturer for a repair. The whole process can take 3-4 weeks, as they are closed right now because of Chinese New Year celebration.
Me (February 17th) – Do you have an update on when I can expect to have my mkII clone back? It’s almost been 4 weeks.
Vendor (February 17th) – It was Chinese New Year Holidays and they started working at the end of last week. It will take another 2-4 weeks.
Me (March 16th) – It’s been another 4 weeks any news on the MKII clone?
Vendor (March 16th) – I know… long delay. Last week the manufacturer told me that they fixed the MKII clone, and I ordered some additional stuff to ship all together back to the US. It should be here by the end of this week or beginning of next week.
Me (March 27th) – It’s almost been another two weeks. Do you have an update on this item?
Vendor (March 28th) – I am starting to worry too… as I said, it was shipped more than 2 weeks ago with other items I purchased to them but I haven’t received anything yet. If by the end of next week I don’t get the unit back from China, I will ship you a new unit.
Vendor (April 1st) – I got the device back.
Me (April 1st) – Did you happen to test the debugging to see if it works now?
Vendor (April 1st) – I tested it and it works.
April 8th – I finally received it!
The good news is the guy was nice and responded to my email quickly. It just was a shame I had to wait 11 weeks to get a mkII clone when I received a defective product. I still think that if you purchase something that doesn’t work the store should replace it with a new one that does work.
Also I tested the mkII clone and the debugging does work now. I was using a friends JTAGICE for awhile but he needed it back so now I can finally continue working on my projects that I started a couple months!
UPDATE: I can program micocontrollers using the JTAG interface but the SPI interface does not work…If I could go back I would have spent the extra money and purchased the real thing.