The answer is in. It is a long story - the short version is: B&C worked overtime to help me solve the issue and after sending several different iterations of their unit - from their very first engineering evaluation unit to their pre-production beta unit to a second current production unit - they found the answer in a GRT trouble shooting guide. (I'd been all over their web site but hadn't come across it.) In it there is one short paragraph that says a small percentage of production units might have the problem I had. All it took was a 10K Ohm resistor in the tach lead - similar to or just like the answers several of you suggested for other EIS/EFIS and/or regulator manufacturers. So there you go, mixing and matching parts might require a little electronic trimming. All is well now. My thanks to you for your inputs and to B&C for all of their work in solving this issue.