The Kingroon KP3S Pro (V1), Two Years Later

It’s been two years now since I got myself one of the first iterations of the Kingroon KP3S Pro, so I thought I’d post a sort of cursory long-term review of what it’s been like to use it.

For something that I bought on a whim and without any actual reviews, it’s been excellent bang for the buck.

• It is the quietest 3D printer I own – I’ve mostly retired my Prusa clone due to that alone, and I can keep it going during my constant video calls.
• The all-metal construction has proven to be sturdy and stable, with very little vibration even at relatively high speeds (for 2023… current printers are faster), so the outputs are of pretty good quality–for instance, I recently used it to print all the parts for my PicoTracker (including the key caps) and it works great at 0.12mm layer height.
• Despite being a bed slinger, the motion system is good enough that I’ve been considering replacing the nozzle with a 0.2mm one to print smaller parts, although I will have to spend a bit more time tuning filaments since so far most of what I print are functional parts.
• Replacing parts (like a broken belt) has been pretty straightforward so far.

The only real issue I have with it is that it still tends to layer shift on occasion–I suspect that is due to my not tuning for all the filaments I use and the toolhead hitting support structures (I am using stepper feedback for software end stops).

There were a few hardware modifications that helped a bit:

• I created my own version of the classic “filler” spool holder, which I’ve been using for a while now. It works well enough that I haven’t felt the need to improve upon the design, and it has the added benefit of allowing me to mount the Filler itself in several ways.
• Taking advantage of the fact that the nozzle can move slightly outside the print bed, I added a nozzle wiper based on a metal “toothbrush”.
• I got a couple of Garolite/FR4 printer beds that work very well with PETG, to the point where I still haven’t used the PEI bed I bought at the same time. Even though it is an open frame printer, the relatively small bed can run hot enough to maintain adhesion.

Other than that the only real modification was installing a BLTouch and sacrificing the internal LCD to Klipper, which has been working perfectly with OrcaSlicer. At the time I was a bit annoyed that Kingroon had created the V2 and shipped it with Klipper so soon, but given that they haven’t upgraded their official firmware since September 2023, I’m OK with having taken things into my own hands…

Since I can keep it running while working and I have full control of the firmware, right now I am considering building a simple multi-material setup like the 3MS.

This because I now feel the need to print two-color key caps, project enclosures and small mechanical/functional parts with TPU and PETG using material interlocking, and I can’t really babysit manual filament changes.

This is also why the KP3S is ironically, the printer I’m most likely to replace with a good, quiet, multi-material alternative, although with the current geopolitical situation I’m holding back a bit on new purchases.

All in all, and considering it’s been two years of frequent use, I think the KP3S Pro V1 was a good purchase–especially if I consider bang for the buck, although to be fair it also helped me compound my experience with Klipper (it became the printer I tested out all my configurations on before applying them to the others).