Did what you asked chris- same resuslt and no shorts

go ahead and re-calibrate the whole thing.

This could be a really dumb question, but are you using the same radio as you were before it died? I ask because I somehow manage to forget to reverse the throttle on my futaba radio every time I make a new profile on it, and with castle controllers it gives similar symptoms to what your getting, especially when I try and calibrate it. Flashing LEDs, apparent LED response to throttle, but no tones or anything...

He's not getting any motor tones though, which indicates something is not functioning between the brain and power boards.