This is not a whingeing post......but a genuine report about a deficiency in the documentation that is provided whenever a new release is made available. Allow me to explain what I mean...…
After each release there are always a number of gripes both here and on other social media platforms that the new release has "...ruined my prints..." or "...made my prints worse...." , and there are shouts of "This release is crap." and so on. Some of these heated comments do have an element of justification......however I have noticed that many of the gripes are the result of changes and improvements in the software that also require varying amounts of changes to settings to either go along with or compensate for the effect of the code changes.
One example where I can illustrate this is a change in the area of the raft to model interface. Pre the release, to get a good separation, I had to use a separation distance of well over 0.25mm. My first print after the upgrade came away from the raft during printing. I found I was able to reduce the separation distance down to 0.02mm....a far more sensible value.....and I found that everything had improved...better adhesion, better separation and better finish. But I had to find out for myself that a change was needed in my settings.
Now....if the release documentation had a note advising that the separation distance setting MAY need adjusting, then I would have been able to re-tune my setting at a convenient time....and not to get a job printed!
So...the bottom line. Release documentation needs improving and expanding to advise of potential changes to settings where a software change has changed or improved functionality.
I'd be interested to see other's thoughts....and a response from SImplify3D.
And as a footnote, I hate the "bucket" note at the end of the release note section "Numerous additional bug fixes and stability improvements" It says nothing.....apart from "We couldn't be bothered to list any more....and are putting something we can hide behind if challenged about not documenting something."