Heater Resistor Stuck in Heater Block

General LulzBot TAZ
1

I came back to find my printer merrily going through all the motions of printing, but not actually extruding. I had this happen before and the problem was that the heater resistor had burnt out. Fortunately I now keep a spare heater resistor around.

Unfortunately I’m finding that the resistor won’t budge from the heater block. I’ve tried half heartily tapping it out to no avail (didn’t want to damage anything). Tomorrow I’m planning on trying to use a Dremel to remove enough of the resistor for the pieces to come out.

Is this a common issue? And if so, is there a trick to freeing the burnt out resistor from the heater block?

Thanks in advance!

2

Ended up using a deep wall socket to support the heater block and a punch to pound the resistor out. Drilling the resistor did not work as the resistor is ceramic and extremely hard. Just had to get fairly aggressive with the punch and hammer. Printer is up and running again, so apparently it survived the experience no worse for wear.