Troubleshooting help

What engine? Which ERR board kit? Can you list the procedure you used to program it? What was the response of the programming steps? Do you know how to turn the headlight on and off with the CAB?

I don't know which ERR board kit my repair shop used, and unfortunately he'll be unavailable to answer that question until Wednesday.  The other Loco that won't program is a Lionel B&O EM-1 6-28051.  To program I've:

1.   Powered off the track

2.  Moved the Run switch to Program

3.  Placed the loco back onto the track and powered up the track

4.  On the Legacy Cab, press ENG, 76, SET.  (Not getting any response from either loco after pressing SET).

5.  Power off, remove the loco, flip the switch back to Run, return to the track and power on

6.  Pressing ENG 76 on the legacy cab, no response from the locomotive.  Press ENG 1 on the legacy cab, responds immediately.

On my EM-1, I can turn the front light off using the AUX 1 button on the CAB, however for the Mohawk with the ERR board, I do not know how to turn the headlight on and off, it's definitely not responding to the AUX1 button.  My repair guy recommended trying a reset by doing this:  In program mode, Press Engine, Engine number (in my case 1), SET, AUX1 and then #4.  However, on my legacy cab, I press Engine, 1, set, AUX1 and the keypad does not change to numerical mode.

First, it doesn’t seem like the program switch is connected properly...I wonder, if you set the switch to program and power up the track, before doing anything else, does the engine then run with the ENG 1 command? That would suggest that the program switch is not doing anything.

On the reset, you won’t get the numbers back, but just count to 4 on the pads and press that button...the button that would have shown the number 4. That works fine.

looks like you nailed it, bad switches.  Both of them, even in “program” mode, respond to ENG 1 immediately and move, etc.

I would be suspect that two switches are defective. I would consider checking to see the switches are wired into the boards properly.  Of course, the easiest first step to trouble shooting is to replace the switches, at least with test leads, temporarily.

"On my EM-1, I can turn the front light off using the AUX 1 button on the CAB, however for the Mohawk with the ERR board, I do not know how to turn the headlight on and off, it's definitely not responding to the AUX1 button."

For ERR boards, the AUX2 button toggles lights on and off.

Thanks Bob, I have that a try.  The AUX2 button is turning the light on the rear of the tender on and off, but not the headlight unfortunately.

Arthur, is that something a novice like me can do, use test leads to bypass the switch in place?

Finally had a chance to take the ERR loco back to the shop.  Turns out that the program/run switch wasn't wired.  Once he made those connections, that locomotive is working like a champ.  Interestingly it turns out the marker lights on the tender aren't compatible with the ERR board and that's why they aren't lit, leaving the headlight as the last mystery.  It looks like the headlight happened to burn out amidst all this troubleshooting, waiting for that replacement bulb now.  It's a bummer about the red marker lights on the tender, I wonder if they can be hardwired to a power pickup from the track somehow and bypass the ERR board?

Actually, unless the red markers are VERY unusual bulbs, they can be made to work with the ERR stuff, I do it all the time.  They're likely LED's on the tender, a resistor and diode with the proper wiring will light them from the headlight circuit.  Since the front headlight remains on all the time on steam, I wire them to that output, that allows me to have command control of the markers to turn them off with the lights.

Thanks John, sounds promising.  Is that something a novice such as myself can tackle?

Lighting the markers shouldn't be rocket science, the first step would be to determine what  kind of bulbs you're dealing with.  A vast majority of factory stock tender markers are LED, but the older brass frequently had some tiny incandescent bulbs as well.