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Bambu Lab A1 Mini ($299-399) Excellent print quality out of the box Automatic bed leveling and calibration Very user-friendly with great software Compact size, perfect for beginners Creality K1 Max (~$599) 300x300x300mm build volume Fast printing speeds (up to 600mm/s) Auto-leveling and enclosed design Good balance of features and price Prusa MINI+ (~$429 kit, $529 assembled) Exceptional reliability and support Magne…
Even the Core One just barely misses.
Prusa XL hits your target but is twice your budget.
Also honestly build volume can be a little overrated unless you're printing helmets. You can make things in smaller parts. More build volume brings with it more print issues you have to deal with. But also yeah look at a Voron maybe or the SV08.
If you're new to printing, start smaller anyway. If you've done machining you know there's a materials learning curve and the same thing applies here to the nth degree. Print material, volume, orientation, density, first-layer adhesion, temperature, etc all are things you will have to account for and will affect your print quality/strength. You want to learn about these things in smaller prints that waste less time and material rather than more/larger.
E.g., get the MK4S Kit.
Whatever you do, you're going to have to dry your filament if you don't use it within a month of opening it. I used to like the tweaking, but once I got a Bambu P1S, I've gotten spoiled just being able to hit print and let it go.
this isn't always true. i live somewhere so dry PLA is fine left open for several months w no water uptake
I'm going to make an unpopular suggestion. Have you considered using a service that will print and ship to you, like CraftCloud? Depending on volume, your total cost would likely be lower. I know you mentioned privacy concerns so this may not be an option. But it significantly simplifies your work, letting you focus on the parts themselves.
Bambu Lab A1 Mini ($299-399) Excellent print quality out of the box Automatic bed leveling and calibration Very user-friendly with great software Compact size, perfect for beginners Creality K1 Max (~$599) 300x300x300mm build volume Fast printing speeds (up to 600mm/s) Auto-leveling and enclosed design Good balance of features and price Prusa MINI+ (~$429 kit, $529 assembled) Exceptional reliability and support Magne…
A1 Mini build volume is 180 x 180 x 180 mm³
Bambu Lab A1 Mini ($299-399) Excellent print quality out of the box Automatic bed leveling and calibration Very user-friendly with great software Compact size, perfect for beginners Creality K1 Max (~$599) 300x300x300mm build volume Fast printing speeds (up to 600mm/s) Auto-leveling and enclosed design Good balance of features and price Prusa MINI+ (~$429 kit, $529 assembled) Exceptional reliability and support Magne…
They do have a bunch of cloud service BS and phoning home that runs afoul of the HN spirit, but there's a LAN mode that allows you to send prints from LAN without opening up to the wider internet. If that's still too restrictive, you can always do direct SD card transfers via sneakernet.
Software might be too closed for you, IDK if there are jailbreaks. Repairability is possible but fiddly – akin to current gen car engines, rather than 70s types. They're very popular printers, I've only needed to open the head once, and there were plenty of YT teardown videos to help.
The Bambu slicer is good. They've got niceties for basic operations like snapping to bed or scaling up/down by a few percent. I believe it's based on cura slicer, which is also excellent.
P1S is at the midpoint of your budget. Their next model up is $1200, depending on your flexibility. Might have some value if you're doing more obscure materials. Didn't realize how cheap the enclosed ones had gotten. I've got half a mind to upgrade myself now....