Thanks for a few suggestions .. here is what I know ... I too had found the wiring schematic on Lionel's website, but I do appreciate you sharing it too .. it is wired as you noted with respect to the violet wire & the red arrow. Everything seems to be secure 'wire-wise'. In regards to your suggested adventure .. I did cut the violet wire and put it on the track in conventional mode and powered it up, I do have sound (engine RPM) and have tried the horn and that works too .. what I also tried was (using a jumper) re-connecting the violet while while the Railsounds was playing and it continued to work.. I then cycled track power with the jumper still connected and NO sound on power-up. I then disconnected the jumper, re-cycled power and the sound works again.
Just for curiosity, I tried to access the engine via TMCC and the violet wire disconnected .. no such luck no matter what position I had the Prog/Run switch in .. I tried to change the units access ID .. no luck there either at this point .
Any other thoughts ?? I really do appreciate your suggestions .. thanks
I love/hate trying to diagnose the problem, but I do enjoy the frustrating challenge, while learning at the same time .. The pre TMCC stuff is easy to troubleshoot and keep running .. changed many drums in the old e-units
