Hello,

Sounds like you have quite a project to decide what to do. Previous post had a lot of good info. There is a learning curve associated the low to mid level FFF printers. They have to be babysat to make sure all goes well, especially in the beginning part of the print. It is not a click print and come back in the morning. Once you get some experience that will be possible but it takes some practice. Printing at high resolution is S_L_O_W. Large objects can take 36 hours and require feeding in new filament in the middle of the print. Things can go wrong during print like filament breaks, warping which causes print to rip, nozzle clogs, power loss can destroy print unless APC in use, etc. Again all these problems can be overcome with effort.

Jumping up to the professional level and different process like SLS will be much more reliable, higher detail, faster, more expensive for both machine and materials. They definitely follow the razor/razor blade business model.

The cadd work can be very labor intensive especially with scanned objects. The mesh has to be cleaned up which can take hours and requires quite a bit of skill. There is some software that claims to do this of which I have no experience.

Regards