From Zero to Additive Powerhouse: Terrestrial X’s 3D Printing Journey

How did a small team with no background in 3D printing build one of the most capable high-performance printing centers in Western Canada—in just one year?

In this exclusive interview, INTAMSYS Product Manager Bingbing Ma and Channel Sales Manager for the Americas Daren Warnick sit down with Matt Jensen, COO of Terrestrial X, to hear the full story. From rebuilding natural gas compressors to running a 10,000 sq. ft. additive manufacturing facility, Matt walks us through the company’s bold leap into industrial FFF printing with INTAMSYS.

In this candid conversation with INTAMSYS team members Bingbing Ma and Daren Warnick, Matt shares how they scaled production, why they chose specific printer models (310 NEO, 410, and 610HT), and what it really takes to go from first prototype to end-use parts for demanding industries.

Read on for the full interview transcript.

Duration: 8 mins

Topics: Scaling strategu, PC, ESD, machine reliability, parallel workflows

Key Takeaways

• How to scale from zero to 13 printers in 12 months
• Why Terrestrial X chose INTAMSYS for material versatility
• Multi-printer workflows using PC, CF, and ESD-safe materials
• Insights on uptime, cost-effectiveness, and 24/7 production
  
  

Full Transcript

Click below to read the full transcript of the conversation.

How it Started

Matt Jensen   
I knew nothing about 3D printing at all. I just knew that I needed it for what we were doing.
So essentially we started at the 610HT conversation.
Then we went from the 310 NEO and just worked out way up from there.
You know, we progressed from there. So now we have 13 printers.

Daren Warnick  
Like interesting story. It's super interesting.

Matt Jensen  
Yeah, it is.

Daren Warnick  
Super compelling. And I don't know if we mentioned this at the beginning—but before we end this, I want to make sure they understand: prior to 3D printing, Matt, you already had your business. What was it that you were doing before getting into 3D printing?

Matt Jensen  
Natural gas compression.

I was working in power generation and natural gas compression—I traveled all over Alberta, repairing and rebuilding natural gas compressors. We sold and serviced those compressors.

I partnered with my father-in-law and my fiancée. That's my background—natural gas. I'm a Red Seal heavy-duty mechanic and millwright. So that's essentially where I started. Then of course, during COVID, we just couldn’t get parts fast enough.

Matt Jensen  
That was probably the biggest thing. So during that time, I came forward to my father-in-law and said, "Hey, I think we should 3D print piston rings and make our own pistons, and so on." And that’s kind of where it started—but he shut me down.

Matt Jensen  
I told him I needed 30,000 bucks to buy a printer so we could start designing our own piston rings and selling them. Well, he shot me down immediately—and of course, I don’t like being shut down.

So I said to my fiancée, “We need to do something. There’s a market here for it, especially in the energy sector. We have to pursue it. We have to chase it.” Because the problem is, our customers were waiting six to nine months for a set of piston rings. Kind of started out like that.

Matt Jensen  
I ended up buying a 3D printer that could just barely print PEEK—like, I mean, it just got by with it. And that’s kind of how I started. That’s how it proved out. Then we progressed to the 610HT and circled back around. But yeah, that’s essentially how it all started.

Daren Warnick 
The idea was what you were doing as your everyday job. You were talking to people that couldn't get their parts fast enough.

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310 NEO in Action

Bingbing   
Can you share how many 3D printers you currently have—and what types of technologies you're using? Are they mostly FFF, SLA, or something else?

Matt Jensen   
No, all we have right now is a demand for FFF.

Bingbing   
OK.

Matt Jensen  
SLA—we have a certain customer who’s been bugging us a lot about it. But for the price point and material limitations, I’m really not interested. I mean, all it really does is nylon, right? So...

Matt Jensen  
So that’s kind of where we’ve pushed them away a bit—and stuck with FFF products, right?

And then the other one is metal. We do metal printing too.

Bingbing   
So with an open system, you can use a wide variety of materials—unlike SLA. And there’s also the cost benefit to consider.

Matt Jensen   
Yeah, it is. There's definitely a cost benefit. I mean, to get into SLA—at least with what’s available here—you’re looking at $60,000 just to start.

And even then, you’re limited to customers who specifically want nylon-based parts like PA6/66 or PA12. To me, it’s just not worth it.

Matt Jensen   
That’s why we kind of went with the 310 NEO. A lot of the parts we’re producing work great with FFF. I mean, the 310 NEO prints ASA really well—that's probably why we put close to 700 hours on our first four machines. So that gives you a good idea of how much we've been using them, yeah.

Bingbing  
700 hours for the first four 310 NEOs?

Matt Jensen  
Yeah. First four.

Bingbing   
Wow. It's like the 24 hours a day

Matt Jensen   
24 hours a day. Yep.

Bingbing  
You keep using from...

Matt Jensen   
...from the day that they landed the first four that we ordered. They landed on last year on the 31st of December.

Matt Jensen   
And we basically ran them for almost three months straight, so almost 24 hours a day.

Bingbing   
Wow. Wow.

Matt Jensen   
We had 70 generator control boxes to do. We already had some hobbyist printers to kind of prove out our theory on 3D printing—especially in Canada. I mean, a lot of people know about it, but they still think it’s a hobbyist thing, right? 

But in reality, it’s becoming more and more like an industrial revolution—especially out here. A lot of people want to have products in their hands the next day. Nobody really wants to wait for anything anymore. It’s just the way North America is.

Daren Warnick   
Go ahead. Yeah.

Matt Jensen   
We want it tomorrow. Or even better—we wanted it yesterday, right? So, essentially, we proved it out. We were having issues with our printers, and then we talked to Craig from INTAMSYS reseller. He told us to just buy these 310 NEOs.

So we ended up buying them. And literally, as soon as we got them, they were on. I’d go home, start a 15-hour print, set my alarm, wake up, and come back to the facility.

Daren Warnick   
Well.

Matt Jensen   
Take the print off, throw a new one in — we were using 3-kilogram rolls — hit print, and away they go again. So yeah, the only thing we’ve ever had with them is nozzle clogging. And that was around the 400-hour mark — we had to change the nozzles. But other than that, we haven’t done anything to them.

 Generator Box Use Case

Daren Warnick   
Yeah, I’ve seen those boxes, Bingbing. In fact, at some point I can share them — Matt sent me some pictures as well.

Matt Jensen  
Yeah.

Daren Warnick   
They're pretty large boxes, weren't they, Matt? They were.

Matt Jensen   
Yeah, they were. They're 12 inches long or whatever, but we had to print them in four parts.

Bingbing Ma   
But these 3D printed pieces — are they used for the oil or gas industry? Or are your customers using them for boxes, or something else?

Matt Jensen   
So the 310 NEOs were used for natural gas power generation — specifically, the control boxes. That’s actually how we got started with the 310 NEOs — printing those control boxes, yeah.

Daren Warnick   
The control box.

Matt Jensen   
Yeah, so that’s probably our biggest one. I have a couple others, but honestly, I can’t really share those. That one I can. I’m just trying to think what else I can tell you about what we’ve done with it...

But yeah, the control boxes are probably our biggest case study, to be honest — they’re large, flat parts and extremely hard to print. We’ve tried printing them on some other printers, all those other printers — and they just couldn’t do it. The parts warped, didn’t fit right, they weren’t square.

But with the 310 NEOs, the parts come out perfect. Every single time. Like, every single time.

Bingbing  
Wow.

Matt Jensen  
And they are large flat parts which is really hard to print.

Daren Warnick
Big yeah.

Matt Jensen  
They're the full bed plate, so like they filled up the whole printer.

Daren Warnick   
I think that case study is really interesting — for a number of reasons. But the part where he’s talking about running those printers 24/7, like 15-hour jobs, with no breakdowns — that really stood out. If I’m hearing you right, Matt, that’s what you were saying too, right?

Matt Jensen  
That's right.

Daren Warnick  
It was really just the nozzle — and that has to be replaced anyway. So, no real breakdowns. We could definitely include that in the case study, and I think Matt would back that up. It sounds like a strong case study.

Matt Jensen  
We didn’t really have anything before — yeah, that’s right. Honestly, I think that’s probably the easiest kind of case study.

It might not sound super flashy, and I get that you’re looking for something more attractive, but in terms of general use, this one's solid. Actually, here’s another one we did... 

Fan Blade Prototype

Daren Warnick   
You see his dog? You guys, he's got a German shepherd back there.

Bingbing 
Wow.

Matt Jensen  
German shepherd. Yeah. This is another one.This is a fan blade that we did. I designed this.

Bingbing   
Wow.

Daren Warnick   
Oh.Wow. Wow.

Matt Jensen  
So. Yeah, I wear many hats here, so.

Daren Warnick  
Yes, you too.

Matt Jensen  
So I designed this fan blade — this was our first prototype. It was printed on the 310 NEO, which we could also do a case study on.

Daren Warnick   
Wow.

Matt Jensen   
It has a steel insert. The 310 NEO was actually the only printer where we ran into a few issues at the beginning — mostly with pause-and-print. But after the firmware update, we were able to insert the steel hub during printing with no problem.

Matt Jensen  
So this was one of our prototypes. These blades were all printed on the 410 — because of their length, we printed them standing up. We’d run six at a time.

Daren Warnick   
Interesting. Wow.

Matt Jensen  
Yeah, six at a time. And actually, for the new design I have — I’m planning to print it next week. This one will have a slot, so the blades can be flipped to go either forward or backward.

Matt Jensen   
So yeah, that’s our design — and it was all 3D printed. The part will be made of polycarbonate, and we printed these on the 310 NEO. Because the printer supports pause-and-resume, we could insert the hubs mid-print. The fan blades will be T-slotted, so that’s another project we could do a case study on.

Daren Warnick   
That’s a heck of a case study — you’re using both printers and leveraging the pause feature, which is really cool. And you're even inserting metal components — that’s awesome.

Matt Jensen   
We were a little bit worried about the 310 NEO — whether it would adhere properly to the steel insert. So we just put down a bunch of glue to get the first layer started.

And once it did, I mean, the print quality was just perfect — really, it came out beautifully.

Daren Warnick   
Right. That looks super clean.From where we're at. Yeah, that looks really good.

Matt Jensen  
Super clean.

Bingbing   
OK, that sounds great.Looking ahead — how do you see the combination of 310 NEO, 410, and 610HT helping your business grow? What role does each printer play in supporting your future operations?

Matt Jensen  
So using them together — now that the 610HT is here, we’re starting to get things dialed in.

Bingbing   
Yeah.

Matt Jensen   
So what we generally do is — because the 610HT is a beast on its own — we’ve developed a process. We usually start with the 310 NEO or the 410 to test print a part.

If a customer needs it printed in something like PEEK or PEI, I’ll first run it on the 310 NEO to make sure it’s printable.

Matt Jensen  
So I use it as a base service.

Bingbing   
OK.

Daren Warnick   
The geometry of it. Is that what you mean?

Matt Jensen   
That’s right. I’ll double-check if it’s printable, or if we need to make any design changes to make it FFF-compatible. Then from there, I’ll print it on the 410 — again, because it’s more cost-effective.

Matt Jensen   
So I’ll print it on the 410 and show it to the client — saying, “This isn’t the final part, but it’s close to what it’ll look like.” Then we’ll do the actual production on the 610HT.

So essentially, it’s a three-step process. It might seem like a bit of extra cost upfront, but it’s really about proving the concept to the customer.

Matt Jensen   
So we're on that journey together — from start to finish. We’ll first do a test print on the 310 NEO, and then move on to the 410.

Matt Jensen   
Or if the part turns out good enough, we’ll just keep using the 410. But if it turns into a mass production run — say, we need 20 or 30 parts — then we’ll move it to the 610HT, and the 610HT will take over from there. That’s essentially our process, and it works well for us. A lot of people would just use a 610HT for everything — test prints, production, all of it. 

Matt Jensen   
But we ask — why would you want to put hours on an expensive machine, when you can just use cost-effective materials like ASA or high-speed ABS to prove out that theory first, and then work forward from there, right?

Bingbing   
Well, that's right.

 Multi-Printer Workflow

Matt Jensen 
Yeah, so that’s kind of how everything works together — depending on the customer, of course, but yeah. 

Daren Warnick   
That’s a great sales process. Just hearing it, I can see how it works for you too, Matt. And those 310 NEOs — they’re your workhorses, right?

Matt Jensen  
Yeah.

Daren Warnick   
So you can throw everything at those, save money in the process — and I love how you work your way up to only using the 610HT when it really makes sense, financially or for the job itself. Right?

Matt Jensen   
That's right. Yeah, saving it for the jobs that count, right?

Bingbing   
That’s why I totally get why you’re running the 310 NEOs 24 hours a day — because they just work.

Matt Jensen  
Yeah, it makes sense now. You know, it's because they’re essentially our workhorses, right?

Bingbing   
Yeah, this makes sense.

Matt Jensen   
They prove out everything we need them to, so...

Daren Warnick   
I mean, just from a marketing standpoint, that’s music to our ears — that our printer can run 24/7 without any issues.

Matt Jensen   
That's right.

Daren Warnick  
That's a wonderful thing. It's good for our customers.

 Printing PPS with 310 NEO

Matt Jensen  
It's good for everything, yeah. And you know what?
The crazy thing about we were going back to the 310 NEOs. The one thing about the 310 NEOs that blows me away is its ability to print PPS.

Bingbing   
Oh, PPS.

Matt Jensen   
Honestly, the 310 NEO prints PPS better than the 410.

Daren Warnick  
Wow.

Bingbing  
Wow.

Daren Warnick  
That's interesting too, yeah.

Matt Jensen   
I showed Timm that piece today, and he kept looking at it, saying, "That's a 310 NEO piece?" And I said, "Yeah, it is." He said, "God, that’s unbelievable."

I think it’s a combination of factors — PPS is such an exotic material. It's chemically resistant, and its viscosity is much lower than most other filaments.

Daren Warnick 
Yeah.

Matt Jensen   
So what happens is, because the 310 NEO prints so fast, it's able to lay down the filament quickly between each cycle. That allows the layers to adhere better, so your layer lines are almost invisible.

Compared to the 410 — which is a very consistent machine and prints nice parts — the 310 NEO actually does a better job printing PPS, in my opinion.

Daren Warnick   
Interesting point — the speed definitely helps with that.

Matt Jensen   
Yeah. That's right.

Daren Warnick   
Here's me — I’m just the dumb sales guy here — thinking speed is all about getting parts done fast. Just print 'em, print 'em, print 'em.

But actually, in this case, the speed is making the part look better. That’s wild.

Matt Jensen   
That's right. Better.

Daren Warnick   
Yeah, well, interesting.

Bingbing   
Oh, that is very interesting point.

Matt Jensen   
Yeah, so there's definitely some trade-offs. When you have all three INTAMSYS machines, you can really pick the best one for the job. Like — if we’re printing PPS and it's a larger part, the 310 NEO handles it no problem. But if it’s a small, detailed part, the 410 usually takes over. Not saying the 310 NEO can't do fine detail — it definitely can. I’ve found that if I slow it down to about 65%, it prints just as nicely as the 410 on those smaller parts.

Daren Warnick   
Interesting.

Matt Jensen   
So yeah, we’ve been kind of playing with the settings back and forth. Even at 65%, the 310 NEO still prints faster than the 410. But there are always trade-offs, right? Go too slow, and you might get imperfections because the passes are too slow. Go high-speed, and you might lose detail — like a corner not coming out perfect. So yeah, you can’t have it all in one machine. That’s why we have all three.

Daren Warnick  
It sounds to me like you really embrace the fact that you have full control over these machines as well. Would that be correct in saying that?

Matt Jensen   
That's right. Yeah, that is.