Another intersting fact, Ryan is finishing his electronics and only a few capacitors were missing. The board was pulling 600mA and was getting hot. The voltages were very unstable. After some of the capacitors were installed the board started working properly.
Clearly the switchmode component of the circuit does not work properly without the capacitors. A bad capacitor could probably have similar effect...
The moral of the story: get all parts in before starting troubleshooting