Screws won't unscrew to replace parts

Can anyone help me on an issue I have during the build? Some of the screws are stuck

I carefully built my Maslow following all instructions. Initially finding the machine randomly retracted bands incredibly tightly so i had to rebuild the machine a few times. This turned out to be a PCB board issue.

This got fixed and when connecting I then had an encoder board failure on one of the arms. Maslow have been good enough to replace these. On trying to remove the encoder board however, I cannot undue any of the four screws fixed to the motor. I didn’t overtighten them so am assuming it’s happened during the tight band retractions. As i’ve tried to undue them it seems like the head of the screw has stripped. I’ve tried rubber bands between the allen key and screw to offer traction but have had no success. The arm and motor (i’m presuming) are fine, and I can’t currently afford to replace them so want to try and remove these 4 screws and continue

I have had the machine now since 22nd May, took 2 days to carefully build it and because of issues and replacements, have yet to even perform a callibration!!

If you followed the assemblyguide, you used threadlocker on the motor bolts. So your bolts are glued in. Threadlocker can be undone by using heat, you could try to heat the bolt with a soldering iron, carefully to not melt the plastic of the arm, and then try again screwing , but maybe this time with a torx bit, sometimes these bite better in the screw. If this does not work I’m afraid you will have to remove the heads of the screws. I think that is done easiest with a 3.5mm drill. Luckily the screws have a center hole, drill carefully until the drill bit shears off the head from the stem. This way you may not damage the arm. When all 4 heads are removed, take the motor off, and use pliers to get the stems out of the motor, maybe use a bit of heat to make this easier. Good luck!

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I was able to find a very slightly larger allen wrench and get it to grip into some of these. For two, I had to use a dremel with a small cutting head to cut slots in the top of the bolts to get a flathead screwdriver in to twist them enough.

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As i found out, you dont need to remove the motor to fix the encoder board, you can pull out the bearing above the board to get access to solder the pin, see my post for pics