I have had a Taz6 and Tax workhorse at my work for years… I recently saw a used taz 6 listed on my local facebook market place for 300 bucks with very low use. I jumped on that really quickly. Then early this week another popped up for 200 bucks. I scooped that up too !! I have a small print farm running CR10s. But the lulzbot taz 6 is more reliable machine IMO… I’m just shocked how the price of these has dropped… New this machine was 2500 plus with accessories and shipping. My guess is the over saturation with creality and the ender3 didn’t help.
I’ve seen the same, but for any hobbyist that isn’t looking for something reliable, serviceable, and fully open-source, buying a new $600 CoreXY machine (several options now, not just Bambu) that is 4-5x faster is a pretty easy choice.
Similarly, running a print farm with 10 $600 machines producing at 4-5x the speed (call it 50 production units/hr) easily beats out 30 $200 machines that run at 1x (or 30 PU/hr). Even if the $600 machines have a 20% downtime, you’re ahead in production and (possibly more importantly) space required.
Now, keeping a Taz 6 running is amazingly cheap. Everything is replaceable from multiple 3rd party sources, and a Taz 6 being open source means that any new technology that comes around can be applied fairly easily if you learn to do custom Marlin (or even Klipper) builds.
Will those fast $600 CoreXY machines still be maintainable in 6 years? or will it just be easier to upgrade than repair? That I can’t say, but so long as the frame and bed are in good shape, there’s virtually nothing on a Taz 6 that can’t be reprinted or replaced or upgraded for under $60. If you try and stick with a RAMBO board, yeah, those are expensive, but modern silent boards can be had for significantly less and will drive the hardware just fine.
Cough. Lead screws. Cough.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802988214692.html?gatewayAdapt=glo2usa4itemAdapt
Are the same quality? Not sure.
But you can use it as an excuse to upgrade to a belt system like the Workhorse if you really want. Not sure on that price though.
So, it’s not going to work due to the length, and how it couples to the stepper. Aleph just chose an incredibly obscure lead screw. They are very beefy and despite that I managed to get a used Taz 6 that had both of them bent - probably because they didn’t ship it in the original box. And I overpaid for it. But still, I learned a lot by taking it down to bits and rebuilding it.
Good point. I suppose you could take them to a machine shop and have the end modified? Might run more than $60 after that.
I actually like the lead screw setup better than the belt system found on the workhorse …
I have a used Taz6 sitting on a shop table and I can tell you that my print farm is largely of upgraded CR-10S / CR-10 S5, CR-10S Pro v2 and similar clones sent to me for review. When I do fire them up for a big print task, I’ve found those machines are very reliable given I got rid of the overseas junk they shipped with (electronics boards, Bondtech/Slice hot ends, etc.)
When the Taz does run, it is deafeningly loud and while it prints well, I sure can’t wait for it to complete a print while the other machines humm quietly in their safety enclosures 
Agree on all of the above. I also just checked out your channel. Very cool !!