Trying to interface Lionel lighting PCBs with Cruise Commander

The power off the Cruise Motor boards is 5VDC and only support LEDs not regular lights.

Normally the Lighting PCB take in track power and transform it as necessary to run LED and bulbs depending on the configuration of the PCB.  Some times an input from the mother board is the directional headlight input.

The 8VDC regulator is the smoke regulator used to source a constant voltage for the smoke element and also allow 3 levels of smoke.   G

Yeah I should have mentioned I'm only running LEDs I've got the cab lighting converted to LED, I'm taking that feed from the Cruise Commander and if I can get these boards working it'll take care of everything else which includes the headlight and mars which are LED as well as the LED backup light. I was guessing that the wires from the DCDR-S or the motherboard could be data to turn the headlights on and off depending on direction. I won't know for sure until I can figure out what the pinouts of those boards do.

The Cruise Commander has the standard lighting outputs just the same as any TMCC locomotive, they are fed directly from the R2LC.  As such, they are not just for LED's, they are half-wave track voltage through the R2LC triacs.

The Cruise Commander M has the LED only outputs, but they're for markers and ditch lights, not the headlights.

This is why Lionel's wiring diagram are useless. Look on the back of the pcb by the connector it should be mark 3rd and GND. The 3rd is AC hot, GND AC ground outside rail.

   This should be for markers.

Bill

Got it all working! With your help and ideas I was able to get the right outputs from the cruse commander to the lighting PCBs and it works just like it's supposed to. Thanks for all your help!