The boards arrived, however I only got them partially assembled because I ran out of solder ( oops). That's why a lot of components haven't been populated yet. However everything required to test the critical systems was populated. I couldn't get it to work - I traced the issue down to the ring counter. Probing the inputs to U3 showed that it was being fed the correct signals. It looks like U3 is a goner. I'm going to replace it, but can't until I get a new shipment from Mouser - it turns out that was my last x174.

This is where I connected all three boards (control board + shift register board + display breakout). The breadboard is just being used to link the 8 Male-Female jumpers connecting the control and shift register boards.