Free Stratasys Dimension bst1200. Repair or part out?

Non car related thread. I am new to the world of 3d printing and computers in general. As a hobby I like picking up free shit on craigslist and making the most of it. Some decent finds have been a oak dining room set, metal/tile coffee table, a baby grand in need of refinishing and most recently a damaged Stratasys Dimension bst1200 3d printer. The company I picked it up from sent boxes of printing filament as well break away support filament, a case of printing trays, the original setup guides on CD and the original owners manual. The machine was diagnosed by stratasys techs and they said the problem was the control panel, $1000 for them to fix it. At least that was the information given to me by the company giving it away. A replacement on Ebay is $350 when in stock. I ordered a 110v 14amp power cord because I do not have 220 in this building. The manual said it can run off either with a dedicated circuit. Once the cord comes in I can see for myself if it powers up.

Do any fellow svtp'ers have experience with this machine? If so is it fairly easy to operate? By chance does anyone work in the industry and have access to used machines for parts?

I have experience with Stratasys printers but the one we had was larger and older. It was honestly a work horse and was almost idiot proof. I can only think of a handful of failed prints and we ran it non-stop. The support material was dissolvable in a chemical ultra-sonic bath. Where it lacked was resolution, speed, material verity (abs only) and operational/maintenance costs. The print cartridges were like $300 a piece and the print trays were like $50 a piece. You were only supposed to use the trays once but eventually we started to reuse them. You could get 10-20 prints or more out of them if you were careful and cleaned them up.

We eventually switched over to SeeMeCNC printers. Cheaper printer, cheaper maintenance and operation costs, and better resolution. Down fall is you have to know what you are doing to get a good print. We had many failed prints at first until we got things dialed in. We still get them occasionally but its pretty rare.

I was reading about the cartridge cost. It isnt much of a concern to me yet because they gave me 13 new sealed cartridges as well as two in the machine. From what Isaw someone figured out how to reload the cartridge and trick the machine into thinking they were new.
Are parts easy to source for the machine?

So I got it running and partially completed a test print. The machine has trouble zeroing the build plate. I tried a new build plate and got the same issue. It starts the spring after 20 to 30 tries. I noticed the Z axis bearings are worn and the build tray is 0.2 degrees slanted according to a digital level. Do you know if this would be most likely my zero issue? Or do the machines factor in slant when zeroing? Thank you