Thanks KISS, thanks Alec.
Can't go to work until 9:30 today, so I started with the TTAM and will test PDMs tonight.
There is 12V coming out of the Vreg, so I re-connected everything. The tidal timer seems to work just right! My DMM showed it toggling right along at 11.9V. On the flick terminal, after I slow counted to 35 or so the DMM momentarily showed 0.5V or maybe it was 5V but anyway it looks like the flick is active.
I must have had something hooked up wrong, IDK. Fingers crossed for the PDMs to be OK.