Introduction

I was planning on modding my Aquila with even more upgrades. Linear rails, Idex, belted Z-axis, and even Switchwire. The cost of these upgrades is quite hefty, and I’m getting to the point where the upgrades would soon surpass the cost of the printer itself. So, I wanted another project printer I could tinker with.

KP3S

The Kingroon KP3S was on sale on Amazon for $229.99 CAD. I was looking at the printer before, because I was considering on buying a Prusa Mini clone. I read 3DPrintBeginner’s review on the Fysetc Prusa mini. It would cost quite a bit and the community was very small. I also had no idea about the quality of parts I’d get. Their review recommened out checking out the KP3S, so I also checked out that review.

The KP3S that I bought was a revised version of the one from the review. It has a new Titan extruder and a 5010 part cooling fan. It still has linear rails for the X and Y axis, as well as a direct drive extruder. At the price, it came with a lot of features that would cost quite a bit to add to my Aquila. The smaller 180mm x 180mm x 180mm build volume wasn’t that much of a concern for me as I wasn’t often printing that large of models. I wanted to start printing faster, so this would be a great printer.

Assembly

Surprisingly, the printer was eligible for Prime One-Day shipping, so it came fast. I was planning on purchasing this printer, so I bought a mosfet a while ago. I didn’t plan on it arriving so soon, so I ordered silicone spacers and a PEI sheet. I’ll install them later when I get them.

I unboxed the printer and followed the instructions on assembly. I quickly ran into two issues before I finished assembling the printer. First, there was a dent in my build surface. For some reason, the screw in the bed was petruding from the factory and left an indent in my build surface. This wasn’t that big of an issue since I was getting a PEI sheet, but it’s annoying on a new printer. My Z-axis coupling was also too tight from the factory. I wasn’t able to insert the lead screw into the coupler with the screw backed out entirely. I contacted Kingroon, and they told me to take a screwdriver to hammer it open. This shouldn’t have been needed to set up the printer, but since I didn’t know how long it’d take to get a spare part, I did it. Eventually I did get the lead screw in, and I was able to finish assembling the printer.

Leveling

The software is already better than the stock Aquila’s as it has the leveling points built into the software. All I had to do was tap the point in the menu and use a paper to level. The Z-leveling nut was too high at first, but it was easy to adjust with a screwdriver. It would’ve been a perfect experience if I didn’t have to rotate the bed surface because of the indent.

First print

The included micro-SD card had two gcode files on it. I printed the bag clip and encountered some Z-banding issues.

I plan to print a X-axis tensioner to tighten the belt in the future.

I also had some layer shifting, but tightening the eccentric nuts on the Z-axis fixed that.

Mosfet

I bought the mosfet because there was quite a bit of power being pushed through the DC jack. I saw TH3D’s video on adding a mosfet and decided to do the same. They were located in the United States, so shipping would’ve been terrible to Canada. I found a mosfet that looked the exact same as the one they were selling on AliExpress and bought it. I also bought wires from my local Home Depot, I got red and blue since they didn’t have any black wire in stock. I also bought some spade connectors.

TrocheHole’s maintenance pillar was useful for keeping the printer balanced on the side.

I ended up returning the printer before I could make the upgrade.

Conclusion

This printer caused me many headaches. The bed came defromed and the coupler for the lead screw was too tight from the factory. After this, I had issues with clogging and then a burning smell. I ended up returning this printer as it caused way more problems than it fixed. I might try another printer another time.