If what you need is a regular FDM machine our $3500 printer is a really, really fantastic one. It's the least hassle and has the best out of the box prints out of any desktop 3D printer I've used.
If you're looking to print aluminum replacement parts, you should look at the higher end machines. They have the ability to print continuous composites (our homegrown, weird, and very powerful 3D printing technology) which will let you print parts which are strength/stiffness competitive with Aluminum.
While our $69,000 printer definitely has an enterprise price-tag, it's still the cheapest (on an amortized cost basis) way of getting strong parts with a 24hr or less turnaround. The purpose of the laser scanner is to close the loop on what is typically an open-loop system in essentially all other 3D printers. I can't say too much more about this but we're adding a lot of cool features all the time.
(Obvious Disclaimer: I'm trying to sell you on the printers we make because I believe they are the best)
So why doesn't the big machine actually print something larger? I have a Haas Mini Mill, which has a 16x12x10 inch work volume, and that is small a lot of times.
I would buy the $69000 version in a heartbeat (we are a manufacturing company) if it would print a 12x12x12 inch size or a little larger
On the Mark X (69k version) our build volume is almost exactly 13x10x8 inches (we round down slightly when we list dimensions on our website).
If you want I can put you in touch with someone who can help you figure out if your use cases will fit our printer. Send me a note if you're interested: abe@markforged.com
If you're looking to print aluminum replacement parts, you should look at the higher end machines. They have the ability to print continuous composites (our homegrown, weird, and very powerful 3D printing technology) which will let you print parts which are strength/stiffness competitive with Aluminum.
While our $69,000 printer definitely has an enterprise price-tag, it's still the cheapest (on an amortized cost basis) way of getting strong parts with a 24hr or less turnaround. The purpose of the laser scanner is to close the loop on what is typically an open-loop system in essentially all other 3D printers. I can't say too much more about this but we're adding a lot of cool features all the time.
(Obvious Disclaimer: I'm trying to sell you on the printers we make because I believe they are the best)