I'm going to be rebuilding my Q3D ThreeUp to be less shitty, but I've got little CAD experience.

I have a Q3D ThreeUp. Piece of garbage. I want to rebuilt it to have a plastic frame and be less crap. Problem is, that means the frame will be split into multiple parts. I've got little experience with 3D design, even 3D printers in general (though my printer has forced me to learn quite a bit). Am I welcome here? Should I ask the majority of my questions on here or on IRC? Anything I should know?

I'll be using Autodesk Inventor most likely, as I have a student license. Ideally I'd be using something free or open-source to make my design more accessible, but I'm not comfortable enough working with freeCAD or OnShape or anything like that. Inventor was surprisingly easy to learn, especially for my first real CAD program.

If you're going to improve the design, you have to start by analyzing what is wrong with the current design. Make a list of the things you think are wrong and then a list of possible fixes. You can post those lists here and ask for feedback. I'm sure you'll get plenty.

For starters, I seriously doubt that a plastic frame is going to make a crappy printer better. It can't possibly be THAT crappy.

If you want to see an example of a printer built to reliably deliver quality prints, check the link in my sig, below. It may help point out some of your printer's faults and may give you some ideas for design improvements. My printer still has plenty of faults- it's big, heavy, noisy, not very fast, and a little expensive, but it consistently delivers very high quality prints.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

Frame is made of MDF. The slots are starting to wear away, I've put shards of failed prints in them to keep the whole thing sturdy. I'm redesigning it to be more reliable though, I'm not just taking the old design and making a plastic version.

I made a similar post on reddit, people are suggesting I buy Simplify3D. [www.reddit.com]

I've started a Trello board for the project. [trello.com]