@Thatguywithathing Good question! From a long term sustainment perspective, keeping the majority of the Stratasys parts is a risk. If something breaks, or a consumable (nozzle, or liquifier tip as Stratasys calls them, etc) is needed, head to ebay and hope you can find it. Over the years when working on some other 3D printer projects, I've picked up a few random spares off ebay, so for me the risk is low (for now!).

In my case, some pros:

Limit switches, end of axis switches, door switch and head toggle switches already exist, as well as their wiring. Can reuse Dual extrusion system is repeatable and reliable. Can reuse. (I also quite like dual/multiextrusion, be it this, IDEX, etc. Would like to maintain this as a dual extrusion system). Infrastructure to power/switch chamber AC heaters already exists, can reuse 120V heaters for the model, support material are present, as well as the ability to drive them. Existing nozzles (liquifier tips) work well in heated chambers, no concerns about clogging or heat creep Cost - reusing as much as possible is likely the most cost efficient approach (assuming we start with a functional printer).

Added Capability

I added a small 48VDC power supply to power the Duet 6HC. This grants some additional speed for the X,Y, and Z stepper motors vs. stock 24V.

Cons:

Existing tool head is large & heavy. Yes, it offers great dual extrusion capability, but a smaller print head (or somehow 2x for IDEX) could zip around the chamber and offer excellent prints.

Personal Challenges:

Closed-loop DC motor control (for the extruder) - a fun personal challenge for me. DC motor control isn't something RRF (or other printer firmwares) natively support (RRF supports closed loop stepper motors via the 1HCL expansion board). Using a Geckodrive G320x with step/dir from an expansion board (could be a 1XD from Duet, or a Sammy-C21, etc) pretty much works immediately, but when driving the DC motor directly, you'll either see the driver fault out, or the motor will see excessive thermal rise - the G320x just isn't the right tool for this type of motor. I'm having much better luck with a Nucleo-64 running SimpleFOC's SimpleDC library. Custom PCB. The conversion can be done simply by running jumper wires from the Duet(s) to the PDB, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the world of electronics design.

Were the printer non-functional (print head assembly missing, no PDB, etc) then I for sure would have taken an alternative approach to converting it over to RRF. Your conversion is extraordinarily well done, and highlights how powerful modern controller boards are compared to the ancient boards in the stock machines!