Prusa Mendel Kit: What is this part??

I have built a Prusa Mendel Reprap, but cannot for the life of me know what this part is. I already have an extruder assembly, and a heated bed. What is this??



Thanks in advance!

Rob

Mystery Item Image

It's a heater cartridge for your hotend...

Hi Bob -
That's what I thought. It has some pretty beefy wiring, and looks like a big ceramic resistor. The thing is, I am not sure what to do with it. I took a picture of the current extruder I have from the kit, which looks pretty much plug and play...


This heater cartridge might be a replacement for all I know...

Possibly related to this, I am having issues turning on the extruder heater from the Sanguinololu I have. This is really puzzling!

Thanks,
Rob

I call it a cartridge heater, it is basically a custom shaped ceramic resistive heating element in a can.

It looks like there is a regular power resistor in the hotend, so perhaps the cartridge heater is supplied as an alternative or a free gift? The cartridge heater can achieve much higher temperatures, so probably best to start with power resistor.