Wow. amazing responses. thank you all for spending time trying to help a complete newbie getting there.
I did check the LEDs in my spare kit, and this is just the way they are. the red and green internal structure (within the 'bulb') are just inverted. They are both ON when I connect the USB cable, so I suspect they are correctly oriented.
tbone321 and RM , thank you for that insight. The green light being ON seems to be part of what I should expect, and that is good news. I can move away from trying to figure out if this was a symptom of me building that board incorrectly.
RM, I will be doing some shaking as soon as I get home. Should I expect to see flickering even when the only transmission being done is a universe of zeros? (I will try it first with nothing connected at all, just the USB)
I have been using xlights on PC and on MAC, as well as vixen on PC to test the dongle so far.
tbone, the data light is not lighting up on the express. I am not sure if you are talking about the 3rd LED in the row of 16 (DMX) or the 3rd LED by the +5V and +3.3V. But neither of those ever lit up (except for the DMX one, during the test mode).
RM, is it a requirement to cycle trhough the addresses at least once after boot up? I usually don't touch that setting after I turn it on, and that might be one of my mistake. I usually push reset after running a test, and start transmitting from vixen or xlights right then.
Well that's it, going to go home and cut my workday short
Really want to get that part done and working before going the next step.
Again, thanks a lot to all of you for the help.