I recently bought (2) lionel lighthouses for my twin sons for Christmas, advertised as “one working” and “one with issues”. A handy dad ought to be able to handle this, I thought. Here’e the problem. One does work perfectly and, after some disassembly and repair work, the other lights the inside of the tower, rotates the beacon, and makes sound, but the LEDs at the top don’t light. There is voltage in the rings at the top, and I bought a new light unit from Lionel, thinking LEDs were bad. But still no light. What am I missing? An interesting side note. The operating tower has one set of red and black wires to which both light leads are connected. The non-working lighthouse has two sets of red and black wires from the controller board for the lights - I assume one to the tower light and one to the beacon, which the previous owner appears to have reconnected. I am stumped. Are the voltages at the ends of the two sets of wires different in any way? What voltage is intended to operate the LEDs so I can test their operation? Need to resolve this in nine days or less to impress two small boys. Help!
Try tracing your wiring with a digital multimeter using the ohms or resistance setting. If you don’t have a multimeter, a cheap one can be bought at Harbor Freight. You may find that a wire is broken inside one of the light houses. See where each wire goes to, example; does red go to the tower socket or to the frame of the light house, does black go to the beacon rotary motor?
I’m having a similar problem although I don’t have a Lionel.
Mine lights and I have a rotating beacon but my lights are very dim and the beacon is noisy. I plan on taking it apart sometime this weekend and if someone hasn’t answered it for you by then, I might have an answer. However it does sound more like you have a wire or a switch problem and you really need a multimeter to check it.