Summary

The heaterboard was not heating up, so we installed a new LED and the board now works properly.

Instructions

Problem: heater board was not heating

Test the heater board to make sure it was not working; it did not heat up and the LED did not turn on.
Remove the heater board from the Thing-o-matic (TOM).
There are 5 components that would affect the boardâ€™s ability to heat up â€“ three resistors, LED, and capacitor. Check the three resistors first as they are the easiest components to measure. The LED is more likely to not work than the capacitor, so we decided to change the LED first.
To change the LED, heat the soldering iron and then apply it to the metal to heat it up, to remove the LED.
When we removed the LED, we used pliers to pick it off, but it ended up breaking the used LED. (A possible suggestion would be to heat the solder for longer and remove one side, then heat the other side and pull it off with the pliers.) This caused some of the metal connecting the LED and motor to be messed up, therefore we also had to come up with a way to have a connection from the motor to the LED.
Solder in place the new LED.