We fixed the printer - before the replacement arrived
It might be a temporary solution, but at least we can print
On our long weekend we had time to check if we can fix the resistor before the replacement arrives. It turned out we could. After some struggle we successfully removed the bad resistor from the hotendThis is where the plastic actually melted. It is part of the extruder which contains the pusher and the barrel as well. and based on the experience we could remove the still good resistor from our first hotend. And it fits into the newer hotend, so assembling it was easy.
We replaced the fan which cools the barrel because it started to be a bit noisy and less effective (unfortunately we didn't take any pictures during the maintenance. Sorry.)
Now with the working hotendThis is where the plastic actually melted. It is part of the extruder which contains the pusher and the barrel as well. and new fan we finally could try the new PLA we just wanted to try before the disaster stuck. It seems this is quite a different kind of PLA than we used before. It sticks to the capton tape much less and warps much easier. As you can see on the pictures, we found a way to print with it: warmer bed for the first layer to stick and cooler for the rest of the print to avoid warping. At first glance it worked, but after the first successful print we tried to print something else and that one warped again. Maybe an even cooler bed will be the solution? We will try...
And there is another conclusion here: this PLA is the same brand as the ABS we spent so much time trying to print with. With the same problems we experience now. Maybe our problems were caused by the quality of the ABS, not the ABS itself.