Hi Grant,

Yeah I bought a VP280 from ebay about 2 years ago, I had great difficulty in getting it to communicate via its usb cable, when I first got it I managed to program some chips etc and then 12 months later I came to try it it simply would not communicate with my pc via usb, eventually I lost my temper and chucked the whole thing in the bin, £100.00 down.

So it's weak point is pc link usb, my advice try something else.

Hope this helps
Jason