Question Filament battles - What is you experience with KVP ABS?

[DustinSpeed]

What has been your experience with printing both for and on your voron.

Do you like the color selection?

Does it print well?

Any special considerations?

Is it worth the price?

 

[Derpimus]

sigh

 

[DustinSpeed]

Nice assortment of colors. Printed nice. Seems to always want to be hotter. Price for the chance of a bad spool is hard to justify. I have thrown 2 in the garbage after the color seemed to shift 3/4 of the way into the spool. I want them to be the company they were. Not the one they are.

 

[Dave]

When it's good, it is excellent. When it is not. . . Well. . . .

I just ran through a case of black KVP for making a bunch of parts for my lab at work. That particular case of black was absolutely great.

HOWEVER, some of the rolls of colored filament that I have recently run have had consistency issues through the roll. To be fair, these were rolls that I bought prior to KVP working extensively to improve their consistency. So HOPEFULLY those issues have been resolved and this will again become a "reference" material.

1) Color selection is excellent, if you can find stock.
2) It prints EXTREMELY well, unless it doesn't.
3) 265 nozzle, 110 bed, 55 chamber works for me.
4) Not lately. There have been too many failures with in terms of color, clogged nozzles due to debris, excessive moisture in the filament, etc. to recommend this filament for this price at this time.

 

[Yeri]

I generally like KVP, and I love their wide variety of colors, they have shades that I can't find anywhere else, including a really nice British Racing Green. Prints very consistently and I haven't had issues with them.

However, all of the spools I have are from before their infamous production issues, and I can't speak with the same certainty about their current quality, just what it was when I purchased all of my spools

 

[mjonuschat]

1) So far it's been great, experienced none of the issues reported on Discord so far (all spools bought after Sept 2022)
2) Excellent color selection - especially the fluorescent and stellar colors are great
3) So far it's been super reliable, between spools and colors. 260°C nozzle, 115°C bed, 55-55°C chamber works well
4) Given that I paid on average $25 per spool I'd say it's worth the price.

 

[Dave]

Great idea to include when you bought your filament! Since KVP has had such a drastic swing in quality, it’s worth noting when you actually bought/used KVP.

 

[Defib]

KVP is still my go to for all accent choices and after trying a few 5lb rolls for black it is back on the menu. I've printed well over 200kg of KVP and maybe had 3 bad colorant spools which KVP replaced for me with no question. There is nobody else out there with the color selection KVP has and my last order 11/12 rolls had their seals intact which beats out almost everyone else. Its also easy to tune and that tune is consistent across all of their color selection and in between batches.

 

[garrettwp]

Most of my KVP was bought in 2021 and 2020 (Bought large amounts of it). So far my spools have been printing well. I was out of the loop for a bit with KVP and after reading up on all the issue they had during late 2021 and 2022, it is a shame. I love their colors and it prints very well. At a discount, it was a good buy, but at $34 in change, I am looking at other alternatives.

 

[geekandi]

I had issues with color consistency and packaging.

Colors for 'dark gray' were 3 different shades over 3 different orders over 6 weeks - quite annoying.

Some of my spools come in their plastic bags and have not, at all, been vacuum sealed. ABS doesn't absorb that much water, thankfully, but each of these has had to be dropped into the dryer for a while to print smoothly.

I have since sworn off of KVP

 

[tiamatu]

KVP is so far my favorite ABS filament. The packaging and spools have varied from spool to spool, but the consistency of the prints have been pretty good. First layer at 250/110 and 255/110 for the rest have been pretty reliable, though I have had to go up to 260 on my Revo on parts with long lines (lets it get up to max flow) to avoid any extrusion issues.

Sometimes I get these spools that have small tabs that protrude from the edge of the rings that prevent it from rolling properly on a roller-type spool carrier which is annoying, but I just use the center spool hangar for those.

Adhesion to the bed is pretty much the same as other ABS - sometimes you need brims/ears and other times you are good without. I have moved over to a super small amount of Vision Nanominer adhesive and that stuff is magic. Print after print without cleaning the plate between and zero issues with adhesion.

Trying to find KVP was fairly difficult, but now that you can order from them directly, it makes it a non-issue. Order two 1kg spools for ~$70 and shipping is included (~$35/kg). Buying one from them directly incurs a ~$20 shipping charge ...