Had some time with this again, countingREV2.ld didn't format properly and there were mixed characters from the strings printing.
But countingVid_V2.ld did work. I rationalized the \3 was three places of numbers and tried to expand it to 6 places. Apparently there's something about a variable limit around 32,000.
My intention is to try to use this as an odometer in a custom instrument cluster so 3 digits isn't high enough. Then it dawned on me I could do two formatted strings - one after the other to get to 6 places.
Since the real unit wouldn't be starting at 0 I pulled some starting numbers out that are close to the current odometer reading and started there and it worked fantastic until the first 3 digits rolled 999 and refreshed to __1 instead of 001.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gkstOt7yeU&feature=youtu.be
I don't suppose there's a way to force the "001" ?
I'm posting the ladder from the video, I have one that "should" do a trip odometer (down to tenths of a mile I might add) on the second line but I haven't tested it since it will be prone to the same error.
I'm considering a <= rung to force a "0" to be printed if the value is below 1 on those two places.