Using an HP Pavilion computer. To upgrade from HC2 to HC3, I have to recreate the custom  project I created to activate a solenoid because it wasn’t saved. Has anyone had this problem and is there anything I can do to fix the problem?

I just noticed that Scale Sound Systems has Railpro now!

Well with the LEDs not working at least you hadn't overruled all electrical theory like I thought you had (thinking the LED's were working) just because it didn't suit your requirements 

Anyway. because visualising is better than reading for things like this; this is what’s happening: Link to circuit simulation

On the left is the one output part of the board with a lamp/globe/bulb hooked up. As you can see the majority of the current flows through the lamp to the resistor. On the right is what you've got, a LED and resistor replacing the lamp. Because the forward voltage required for the diodes CR5 and CR6 is less than the LED (~0.6v each for the diodes vs ~3.5v for the LEDS) the CR diodes conduct with virtually no resistance and your LEDs never turn on.

The board is salvageable if you want to put in the effort, you need to remove the diodes CR5, CR6, CR7, and CR8. Because you put 1k resistors inline with your LEDS you can either remove (replace with wire) or keep the huge 150 ohm resistors, they won't get hot again with the 1k resistors in series however the extra resistance they add will reduce the brightness of the LED's some more

If you choose to hardwire, just follow the wiring diagram included with every 9 pin LM  There's nothing special to do.

- Tim

Continuing to plod along. Difficult to do with the advent of warmer weather and the call of the outdoors, including golf courses. 

I just completed creating four pigtails for the lights: front headlight, front gyralight, rear headlight, rear gyralight.
Each pigtail includes a 1206 sunny white LED, a 15 mA current limiter (in place of a resistor) and a micro, two-pin connector. All have been bench tested and they work.

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Here are the results (see photos). The grey items on the bottom of the board sure look like resistors to me, but I'm not an expert - I only play one on TV.  One location is marked R1.

All running was done on test rollers as I don't have a continuous loop of track. Throttle was set at 75% for all tests. Load was set to about 25-30% on the HC. There was a 5 minute cooling period between the first run (in reverse) and the subsequent run (in forward). I removed the shell immediately after each running test to check temps.

Test 1 was 15 minutes in reverse, headlights/gyralites were off.

Test 2 was 20 minutes in forward, headlights/gyralites were on.

After Test 1 the grey resistors where cool to the touch, the LM was slightly warm.

After Test 2, the front grey resistor was rocket hot (headlight), the rear was uncomfortably warm (gyralites), the LM was noticeably warm - you could feel the heat from the outside of the shell.

While you can see the LM temperature increasing, I suspect if I had an actual load and was able to let it loop, it would increase faster.

Next steps?

You didn't run the test without using the motor, ie standstill. however I don't think you'll need to.

Yes those resistors are resistors, The R1 marking confirms that but we did need to confirm it; I've not seen that body colour on that size resistor before. The value is 150 ohms though (brown-green-brown-gold).

Anyway, I'm confident I've been able to ID the board now (consequently lifting the LM off the board may have given this away too). It appears to be an older Digitrax product that Athearn put in their models and I found a home drawn circuit of the board here: http://www.pacificcascaderailway.com/converting-an-athearn-pc-board/. It's certainly looks like it's designed for bulbs/globes/lamps, and in fact I'm surprised you get the LED's to work at all (circuit simulation says it shouldn't!)

Anyway from what I can work out is your passing about 90 mA on each of the front and rear outputs which is about 1.2 watts of heat generating power each output at the same time, so no wonder the poor LM was toasting. From what I can see you can either toss the board and start again with a new motherboard designed for LEDs or you'll have to get rid of more components on the motherboard; namely the 4 smd diodes at each end, and maybe more.

- Tim