Kingroon Kp3s 3d Printer Review, Specs & Price: Best Description and Information below. Best price: You can get the Kingroon KP3S, the budget king among the small 3D printers, at Banggood for €110.98.
Voucher: BGRA535 / At a glance:
- one of the best in its class
- Direct Drive
- linear rails
I’m Lars, 40 years old and I got into 3D printing in 2018 through Kristian’s contribution to the Anycubic I3 Mega. I now have a few printers and a small side business in this area. I got the chance to test the Kingroon KP3S as a guest tester for China-Gadgets and of course I gladly accepted the offer. Here is my test report.
The Kingroon KP3S is a rather small FDM 3D printer with a print size of 180x180x180mm. At around €160, it is a rather cheap printer, which is particularly exciting for those entering the world of 3D printing.
Kingroon Kp3s 3d Printer Review, Specs & Price
- Kingroon KP3S 3D printer
- at Banggood for €110.98 – Coupon: BGRA535
- at Kingroon for ~147€ (from EU) | Coupon: CG | at Amazon for €189.99
- Kingroon KP3S Pro 3D Printer
- at Kingroon for ~164€ (from EU) | Voucher: CG
- Technical specifications
| Surname | Kingroon KP3S |
| print volume | 180x180x180mm |
| Printable Materials | PLA, TPU, ABS, PETG, ASA, and more |
| extruder | Titan Direct Extruder/ V5 Hotend |
| filament | 1.75mm |
| connections | USB, micro SD card |
| extras | Direct extruderLinear guides on the X and Y axes |
Delivery and packaging:
The package came from China Gadgets. The printer arrived well packaged . The box is stable and the printer is securely housed in several layers of foam.
Under a layer of foam is the external power supply, small parts and instructions, etc.
In the layer below is the printer, which consists of 2 assemblies.
Everything you need to get started is included as an accessory. Of course in very simple quality, but at least the side cutters are quite useful (yes, I know, this text is repeated). There is a fork wrench, several Allen keys, a side cutter, 3 spare nozzles (0.4/0.6/0.8mm), an SD card and a USB adapter, a small roll of filament (10m) and the printed instructions (German). A few spare screws are also included.
Construction
The structure is very simple and is also described in the instructions (German). Due to the “interesting” translation, the instructions make your stomach ache with laughter.
The core printer consists of 3 parts, namely base, Z-axis and threaded rod. I was pleasantly surprised by the structure. Many manufacturers promise assembly in 5 minutes, but so far no printer that I have had in my hands has done so. Here the construction is actually done in a flash. Simply attach the Z-axis to the base with 2 screws, turn the threaded rod through the nut of the Z-axis and attach it to the motor using the coupling – done.
That’s the whole montage. No plugs have to be plugged in or anything else. An additional special feature is that the X and Y axes are equipped with linear guides instead of rollers. This is significantly more expensive, howevereasier to assemble and to maintain and precision.
I would describe the cable management as okay. The heating bed has a simple strain relief. The cable harness of the extruder is also neatly routed. A filament holder is included to rotatably store the filament roll on a surface, but it is unfavorable that the printer is often operated with filament from above by the direct extruder. Didn’t really think about that.
What must still be done after assembly is the adjustment of the rollers of the Z axis . Since linear guides are installed on the other axes, you don’t have to do anything except lubricate them a little from time to time.
Build Quality
The processing quality is good . Everything feels valuable and stable. The holes fit and the angles of the Z-axis are correct too. The external power pack is certainly a matter of taste. In the end, it can even help save space since you can store it in a corner.
The USB port and micro SD card slot are conveniently located on the left side. Although I would rather have a full format SD slot, the small micro SD cards are very fiddly.
The print bed consists of a magnetically attached clone of the well-known BuildTak printing plate. These plates are characterized by extremely good adhesion, which can even lead to destruction with filaments other than PLA. However, for beginners working with PLA, it is the perfect printing pad . Unfortunately, the print bed support is not attached to a spring steel mat, which would have increased stability and durability. This is probably due to the printer’s low price of around €160. Unfortunately, there is no pressure bed insulation, but it can be easily retrofitted.
It is operated via a touch color display. Parameters such as temperatures, fan speed, etc. can be changed during the printing process. It is intuitive to use. The language can be set to German. The quality of the translation is the same as in the printed manual. As a result, it is not always clear which button does what. Unfortunately, the information at the time of printing is quite poor. For example, it is never clear at which printing level the printer is currently located.
The extruder is a Titan clone and works on the single-gear principle. This means that only one gear that guides the filament is driven. The contact pressure is adjustable. The extruder is designed as a direct extruder, which means that the path of the filament from the extruder to the hotend is very short. This makes the printer also suitable for flexible filaments such as TPU.
Here we have a V5 clone hotend with MK8 nozzle. The component cooling is designed on one side and the air flow is printed. The fan is an axial fan. Apart from the component cooling, the hotend makes a well thought-out impression. I expect the component cooling to be a weak point.
Leveling
The leveling can be described as “back to basic”. There are no sensors to support you. The only support is that you can move the nozzle to different positions at the touch of a button. But you really don’t need that. The procedure is as follows:
- Heating the print bed and the nozzle to the printing temperature
- Homing all axes and disabling motors in the menu
- Manually slide the hotend into the 4 corners of the print bed and adjust the distance between the nozzle and the print bed using the large screws on the print bed. The distance is correct if a normal sheet of paper can still be pushed between the print bed and the nozzle.
That was the whole attitude. With the small print bed, this also works very well manually.
Print Results
The first thing I do when I unpack a printer: I put the original filament far away. For the first tests, I always use filament that I know for sure works. So I can rule out the filament as a source of error if something goes wrong. For my PLA tests, the gray and red filament from M4P was used.
I would by no means describe the volume of the printer as quiet, although silent drivers are installed, but as is usually the case with the “cheap” Chinese devices, at least a few “roar fans” are installed. In this case it is fortunately not the hotend fan, but the fan from the power supply. These tend to be much easier to exchange for higher quality ones. Out of the box it’s just about acceptable for an office for me.
The SD card contains a ready-to-print model of a Viking on a wheel. I printed this first to get an impression of whether the printer itself is working correctly. The part came out of the printer quite well. As with the last tests, I divide the whole thing into a beginner and an advanced part.
Beginner
In this test, I examined out-of-the-box quality, which is important for a complete beginner. I use Cura version 4.13. There is a profile for the Kingroon KP3S , which I have selected. I took the PLA pressure profile as a starting point without any changes . I determined the optimal printing temperature with a temperature tower. You can read how to do this in Kristian’s post on this page. Then I did my test prints with these settings.
Out of the box, the quality of the Benchy is really useful. We have some artifacts on the overhangs in the bow and stringing. On the one hand, the artifacts come from the fact that the pressure profile does not really choose the so-called Z-scar, i.e. the beginning of a layer, well.
These spots are always visible. That’s why they are usually placed in corners where they are not so conspicuous. But that doesn’t happen here. Another reason for artifacts, especially in the overhangs, I suspect is component cooling. But for such a quick shot without optimization, the result is really useful.
Next I chose the Lattice Cube as an endurance test. An endurance test for component cooling and a large number of retracts. The result showed very poor print quality in the overhangs facing away from the fan and strong stringing, the quality is not good. However, it has to be said that some printers can’t even manage this cube, it’s really an endurance test. Poor quality in overhangs on the side facing away from the fan indicates a weakness in component cooling.
This time I printed the Voronoi cat again in the beginner’s test: all in all with a good result. Stringing was to be expected that it is so little, I was pleasantly surprised.
Without any modification to the print profile, the quality is quite ok. The gray used is a test filament, which reveals even the smallest error. One can work with the pressure profile as a beginner, but there is still some room for optimization.
Advanced
After the printer had already produced usable prints without any optimizations, I wanted to test what could still be achieved with the usual setting options without changing the hardware. I made the standard PLA prints on the original print surface, the prints adhere very well and can be removed after cooling with a little effort.
For the tests I optimized the Cura profile mentioned above. The material parameters were adjusted by means of temperature tower and retract tests and, above all, the printing speed was reduced from 60mm/s to 50mm/s in Cura . I have found that rotating the bench so that the bow is pointing towards the component cooling reduces artifacts. The quality is then very usable, you could invest some optimization in the stringing.
The Lattice Cube has become significantly better after the optimization. There are still weaknesses on the side facing away from the component cooling, but they are much less pronounced. Slight stringing is also still present, but that’s whining at a high level.
The Voronoi cat turned out quite well again. Slight stringing is still there, but overall the print achieves a good result.
For fun, I also printed the popular octopus again, filling the print bed. It turned out really really well. All joints could be moved directly without any restrictions and the printed image was very good overall. Perhaps that gives a better picture of the print quality rather than just looking at weaknesses in the endurance tests.
Conclusion
- Beginner
I wasn’t really excited about the prospect of testing the Kingroon KP3S. In the course of the tests, however, the printer really surprised me in a positive way. It does a lot of things right for the low price. The assembly is also child’s play and linear guides are far above the standard. I can fully recommend this printer for entry into the world of 3D printing. I’m a little surprised that this printer is so unknown.
Advanced
Even advanced users who are looking for a small printer with good print quality for PLA can be happy with the KP3S. It doesn’t take up much space and it doesn’t consume much power. With additional insulation of the print bed and better component cooling, the printer can be significantly upgraded.
Pros
- good workmanship
- good out of the box quality
- Linear guides on the X and Y axes
- very easy and quick assembly
- Good print bed support for beginners
- low price
- Profile in Cura available and usable
Cons
- Heatbed not insulated
- Poor translation of instructions and menu
- weak component cooling
