At work we have an EnvisionTec Aureus 3d printer. It's a high definition resin printer for the jewelry/dentistry industry. Jewelers and dentists tend to use a lot of the same tools, turns out. It's from before 3d printers were any good. It cost $60,000 and had a volume of 45x60x100mm. I loved this printer. We've had it since 2012 and I've kept it clean and operational since then. I fought for approval to buy parts and time to maintain it.
And it's useless now. It's junk. Unsalvageable except as raw materials. Cuz the company that made it, EnvisionTec, is gone. They were bought out several times and finally ended in bankruptcy last year. They kept such a tight grip on the machine that there's no way to run it without their approval. The bulb? $1400 and the machine will only run it for 1000 hours (or a few over to finish whatever you're printing). The actual bulb is on amazon for $20, so really it's 1,380 for the license to use the bulb for a thousand hours.
The resin is something like $400 for 500ml and the printer calculates how much you're using. The base tray costs $250, and it does go bad over time. Luckily this doesn't require a license but ignoring it risks bad prints.
EnvisionTec is gone. All that's left is some email from Germany that will sell you the stuff at the prices above.
