TL;DR: We chatted to Bart Tangermann, a.k.a. De3DPrintMan. He shares his background, his favourite 3D printing stories, and his hopes for the future of 3D printing.
Our ‘E3D meets…’ blog series shines a light on some of the biggest 3D printing community champions.
This time we talked to De3DPrintMan, who has caught our attention with the impressive 3D prints you can find all over his Instagram.
Bart Tangermann a.k.a De3DPrintMan – with 70cm WW2 German U-Boat XXL model
Hello there Bart! Tell us a little about yourself…
Hi! I’m Bart but people probably know me better as De3DPrintMan. I was born in the city of Haarlem in The Netherlands and I live in a town called Leiderdorp next to historical Leiden, together with my lovely wife Erica.
In case it’s not obvious, I’m a hardcore 3D printing addict! Most of my time is spent 3D printing things and creating eye-catching 3D printing content. I also work as a beta tester for a few 3D printer and filament manufacturers – this includes E3D. Most recently I helped beta test Revo!
You did! It was super helpful to us. How are you finding Revo so far?
Where to start? I swap nozzles daily. It wasn’t a problem for me in the past, but it took at least five minutes to do the complete cycle of heating the HotEnd, removing the nozzle, etc.
With Revo, I can decide which nozzle size I want to use during slicing and swap nozzles in 30 seconds before I start the print. I truly love it.
That’s great to hear. So how long have you been 3D printing? What was your first machine?
I believe it was in 2013 or 2014 when I got a MakiBox from a friend. After that I used a wooden Prusa i3 for a while. I still have them today, but they don’t work anymore. I guess I could fix them, but they are more like museum pieces now.
“With Revo, I can decide which nozzle size I want to use during slicing and swap nozzles in 30 seconds before I start the print. I truly love it.”
We have a few ‘museum piece’ 3D printers scattered around our offices too. How many 3D printers do you have now?
Right now, I have 14 3D printers! That’s 12 FDM machines and two resin ones.
They are mostly Prusa printers because I find they work best. This includes two original Prusa MINI's, 3 i3 MK3S's, SL1S Speed. Soon the long-awaited Prusa XL, too!
Besides those, I have an industrial-grade atum3D DLP Station 5, An Artillery Sidewinder X1, a Lotmaxx Shark V2, a Craftbot Plus, a Snapmaker Original, and a couple of less-known machines.
"One thing I’d love to do is upgrade my workshop with the amazing E3D ToolChanger. It's the most logical next step for me personally. I could use it for true multi-material printing, small CNC jobs, and any other tool that I can make work on a machine like this."
We’re still selling ToolChangers! We’ve been helping Prusa with some bits for the Prusa XL, too! It seems like you really like FDM and SLA. If you had to choose between them, which one would win?
That’s a tough one. Both technologies have their advantages, but if I had to choose, I think I would go with FDM. These machines are much more open to modification and hacking, and it’s a much cleaner process: you don't need a lot of chemicals inside your house or workshop. And seeing a layer being extruded is one of the best things in the world, right?!
We think so, but we’re probably biased… Do you have a favourite kind of FDM 3D print? Do you prefer the functional, practical ones, or 3D prints that just look pretty?
I like both! A good functional 3D print is always great fun. I love making things that you can use in your home or workshop. I’m a huge fan of multi-colour 3D printing too. There are so many talented 3D model designers out there and it would be a shame not to print their amazing work.
“One thing I’d love to do is upgrade my workshop with the amazing E3D ToolChanger…I could use it for true multi-material printing, small CNC jobs, and any other tool that I can make work on a machine like this.”
Tell us about your workspace. Any interesting custom tools you’ve 3D printed?
My workspace is my kingdom and I spend most of my day there. This means it can sometimes be a big mess! That’s why I love to 3D print things like desk organisers and other storage containers. As for tools, I love my 3D printed torque wrench, and a 3D printed vise that I use for soldering.
Bart’s 3D printed tool storage and a 3D printed vise used for soldering
‘STL STL STL??’ This 3D printed torque wrench was designed by Anders Olsson and can be found on YouMagine
Any cool 3D printing projects you’d like to show and tell?
I’m very proud of the multi-material Korean Vase I 3D printed. It needed over 3000 tool changes to complete. I also love the F1 McLaren Steering Wheel I 3D printed – a great project for an F1 fan like me.
To be honest there are so many amazing projects but the larger ones that consist of many parts do have something special.
Bart’s multi-material 3D printed Korean vase
Bart’s 3D printed McLaren F1 steering wheel
Have you tried using Revo with an MMU yet?
This was one of the first things I tried after receiving Revo Six. I already did a couple of large multi-color prints and the MMU seems to work better so far. Normally I had to set the cooling moves before retraction to 2 or 3. With Revo, it’s set to just 1. I already used a bunch of different materials and they all worked fine with this one cooling move, which saves a bunch of time.
What’s your favourite 3D printing story?
I love the Josef Prusa story. Like Jo, I am also a DJ and producer, so it was extremely cool for me to read that he started making 3D printers to make improvements for his DJ gear when he was a student. After that, he joined the RepRap project started by Dr Adrian Bowyer, and we all know what came next.
Of course, I also must mention Dave, Sanjay, and Josh's story, and how they started E3D.
There are so many other great stories out there. I would love to see someone write a good book about the 3D printing community one day.
Have you met many industry celebrities?
I think everyone in the 3D printing community is a celebrity! Everyone is unique in their own way and sometimes people that are not so well-known make the most impressive things.
I met my buddy Joel ‘3D Printing Nerd’ Telling a couple of times, and I've been to Prague to visit Jo Prusa and his team of superstars at their factory.
What’s your favourite 3D print?
It’s incredibly hard to choose a favourite, but I am working on a multi-colour F1 Pole Position Award model. It’s a replica of the one from the Dutch GP in Zandvoort, and it is my first multi-colour design. The model is being printed as we speak so I will have to follow up with some pictures one day!
What’s the biggest thing you’ve 3D printed?
I printed a full dashboard for a car last year. I used a belt printer for this and it finished without any issues. It took me a bit over a week, but it was incredible to see it finished.
"There are so many other great stories out there. I would love to see someone write a good book about the 3D printing community one day."
What’s the smallest thing you’ve 3D printed?
I believe that I made one of the smallest (MatterHackers) 3D Phil on the planet using the Prusa SL1. It’s only 4.9mm tall and you can still see the detail. So cool!
How many 3D printers have you built so far?
I’ve assembled a lot of them but I haven’t had the pleasure of building a printer from scratch.
I do have a project in mind with a large delta printer frame. It’s been sitting in my workshop for at least three years now and it needs to be completely overhauled. So, I guess that will be the first.
How many things have you 3D printed so far?
Last week I found out that I made just over two thousand posts on Instagram, which means that I’ve 3D printed roughly the same amount of things!
However, I also 3D printed high volumes of Prusa face shields at the start of the Covid pandemic. For some customers, I also had to print large batches of smaller parts, so thousands. It’s hard to say exactly, as most of my machines are in operation 24/7!
Where do you see 3D printing going in the next few years?
I think 3D printing will be much bigger soon. The exponential growth in additive manufacturing we've seen these last couple of years was just the beginning in my opinion.
3D printers will become faster, more reliable, easier to use, and cleaner materials will find a market. The Maker Community will grow larger and larger. Some people think every household will have a 3D printer in the future, but I don’t believe that just yet. ‘Non-technical’ people will only start to use 3D printers when the reliability matures a bit.
Do you like to design things? What software do you use?
I like to design models myself, but I’m not a great CAD expert. However, I do have a background in technical drawing so I just need to try and master all the different tools in the future.
These days I mostly use Fusion360 for designing models and Microsoft 3D Builder for creating multi-material models.
What do you want us to make next?!
I’d love to see E3D make control boards and 3D printer firmware.
You may be waiting a while! We’re laser-focused on extrusion systems these days. Will we be seeing you at any 3D printing industry events this year?
Sure! I’ll be at Formnext in Germany and I might visit MakerFaire Prague and Eindhoven in 2022. A show in the UK is high on the list now that the Covid restrictions are loosening a bit.
Thanks Bart!
You can support Bart’s work on his Patreon. Keep an eye on what Bart’s 3D printing by following him on Instagram and Twitter.
Maybe you’re a 3D printing community champion who wants to get featured on our blog. Let us know! Chat to us directly on Discord or get in touch with our customer service team to get featured.
Don’t forget to read about other 3D printing community champions on the E3D blog!