Railpower 1300 modified for Z scale by Micro Trains

[Point353]

Does this help at all?

The pins sticking up are the power and direction switches.

Can you get a close-up of (or read the markings on) the 8-pin device underneath the white wire?

[Chris333]

Nothing shows in new pics so I bust out the x10 glass.

D&P
NE555
DPOJO8  O's could be 0's. SO there is the 555 timer, never saw one this small. Last time I saw one I was little kid.

Also. Man it looks like I fired it at one time? Still works just fine. Once I was running (off of battery power) a loco with a capacitor in it. The loco stopped and the pack got very hot. I took the batteries out and they were almost too hot to hold. Put new batteries in it and it worked again.

Newest pic for giggles:

[nscaler711]

Also. Man it looks like I fired it at one time? Still works just fine. Once I was running (off of battery power) a loco with a capacitor in it. The loco stopped and the pack got very hot. I took the batteries out and they were almost too hot to hold. Put new batteries in it and it worked again.

I had that issue with an earlier version running three to four locomotives at a time, I have not ran the RC-02 with batteries since. I doubt the RC-03 is any different internally besides turnout control.
The Rokuhan trains can run off very low current vs Marklin, MTL and older AZL equipment so that may have something else to do with it in my case of overheating.
But while there is short protection, I don't think there is a device to protect it from back-feeding, which may have happened in your case, Chris.

[mmagliaro]

Welp, a 555 with those small-value caps near it (c3, c2, c1) could certainly be an oscillator to generate a square wave.
There appears to be a pretty big inductor (the black rubber-jacketed cylinder between the two green electrolytic caps at left),
which could also be part of an oscillator circuit.  Another reason you might have a 555 in a throttle
 is making a PWM output to the track.    In fact, PWM would almost make more sense because I don't see any transistor on that board
capable of carrying the track current (even "low" current like 250 mA).  I still say we need to put that thing on a scope to
really know what it's doing.