Man 3D Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission For Toyota Engines 230
ErnieKey writes A man named Eric Harrell has reverse engineered a 5-speed transmission for a Toyota 22RE Engine, and 3D printed an entire working replica on his desktop 3D printer. Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing. In all it took about 48 hours of print time, plus many more in order to assemble the device. He has made the files available for anyone to download and print themselves for free.
It's a model (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a model (Score:5, Interesting)
false advermatizing (Score:2)
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Gotcha covered
http://www.dildo-generator.com... [dildo-generator.com]
Re:It's a model (Score:5, Insightful)
Not picking on you specifically, just answering a chorus of boos from the peanut gallery. People have lost their love of how stuff works. Who cares if you can't use it as the real thing. I can think of no better way to learn about transmissions than what this guy had done. And all the negative posters on Slashdot just shrug and criticize. You do this stuff because __you can__, end of story, no other reason needed. From the interest he has received I am thankful others still get joy from doing stuff for purely learning and discovery purposes. They are the ones that go on to invent cool things. The rest drool over their shiny new sealed smartphones and tablets.
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What did he learn about transmissions that he couldn't have learned building a lego 3 speed?
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Considering that he STILL doesn't understand how manual transmissions work, I'd say you've got it wrong.
"The transmission works exactly like most manual transmissions found in any car or truck,” explained Harrell. “However, I can barely explain how it works. It’s fairly hard to grasp unless you assemble one or see an animation of one opened up.”
He no more understands how a transmission works than someone assembling smartphone in Foxconn understands how an iPhone works.
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Here is the headline from the actual article:
Mechanical Engineer 3D Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission for a Toyota 22RE Engine
Totally a lie.
As for the assembly workers at Foxconn, do you believe that they can explain the schematics of an iPhone? Do you believe that the people working on the assembly line at Ford can explain to you how the cars transmission works? Do you believe that the assembly line worker at the aircraft plant knows how the airplane flies?
Re:It's a model (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to agree with hodet's point as well. I'm pretty surprised at the negativity of some of the Slashdot crowd regarding this story.
And the headline is accurate. They could have maybe added "replica" there to make it less click-baitish, but it IS a working transmission for his 3D printed, replica Toyota 22RE engine. The video shows it working exactly like a transmission should. Perhaps we have differing interpretations of the word "working"?
Still, the headline is the fault of the website, not the creator. He has done nothing wrong. On the contrary, what he has done is really cool.
Re:It's a model (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline is not accurate at all. Is there a Toyota 22RE engine that this transmission works with? No. The entire headline is false. Would you be as quick to excuse a news website that ran a headline saying 'President of US Killed in Terrorist Attack' only to find several paragraphs in that they are talking about a TV show?
And while some of the blame falls on the website, more falls on the submitter of the story. This reads like yet another attempt by 3D printing zealots to make it appear 3D printing can do something it can't. Which is too bad, because as you said, this is really cool. A story about making a working model of a transmission actually shows a good and interesting use for 3D printing, beyond the usual 'battery covers!' and 'will eliminate all manufacturing!' nonsense.
To be honest, I did not read the article. Why? Because as I said, it appeared to be just another bullshit 3D printing article. Had the headline and summary been even a little bit accurate I would have read it.
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These 3d printer nut jobs are going around saying things like "you will be able to just print that soon" and post articles like this
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Let's use this article as the illustration. If you don't read the article called, "Man 3D-Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission" because you think it's bullshit right off the bat, then you won't read the article titles "Man 3D-Prints a Working 5-Speed Trans
Camelot!! (Score:3, Funny)
It's only a model
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shh
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It would be a working transmission for a radio controlled car maybe... But aside from using the 3d prints to make molds for castings, I don't see what good this does anyone.
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If you want to learn how a transmission works, and you don't want to disassemble one from the local junkyard, I could see this being a great option.
Re:It's a model (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering how much filament costs, the junkyard transmission might be cheaper.
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Exactly. I remember when I was about 8 years old I built a Revell Visible V8. It was a plastic model of a V8 engine. You could see the pistons moving, the valves opening, spark plugs firing, etc. A very valuable learning experience.
I wish that these articles and headlines were a little more honest. 'Man builds working model of transmission with 3D printing' is interesting enough. No need to add the 'could replace the real thing' hype.
Re:It's a model (Score:4, Interesting)
But aside from using the 3d prints to make molds for castings, I don't see what good this does anyone.
There are 3D printers that use laser sintering to print directly in metal. Materials include stainless steel, aluminum, and titanium. Metal printing is immature technology, and thus expensive, but that will change. For some specialty steels, and for titanium, CNC machining is difficult, and wastes material, so 3D printing will likely eventually become the dominant manufacturing technique for these materials.
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It's a transmission sure. But the "for Toyota Engines" from the title might be a bit problematic. The "it could function as a replacement for the real thing" even more so.
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Yep. And the unqualified claim that "it's not a 'working transmission'" is every bit as incorrect as the claim that "Man 3D Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission For Toyota Engines."
The nice thing about human communication is that it doesn't need to be explicit and precise in every modicum of phrase. Context is plenty sufficient for normal humans. If somebody said "it's not a working transmission" on a story about "Man Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission For Toyota Engines" it's absolutely qualified - b
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Pot, meet kettle.
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The summary does not even hint that it is a scale model. In fact, it contains the laugher of a line 'could replace the real thing'.
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Agreed.
Not to mention (from TFA): "...While the majority of the transmission is 3D printed, there are some smaller parts which can not be printed on a desktop 3D printer, such as the 3mm rod, (18) 623zz bearings, (20) 3mm washers, and a few other small odds and ends like screws and bolts. ..."
"Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing." How the hell does the summarizer make such an assertion?
As far as I can tell from TFA he *neve
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Camelot!
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You're familiar with the 22RE?
You're aware that those motors would run for 200,000 miles driven by an irresponsible teenager that never changed the oil, right?
That certainly aren't the most power motors ever made, but they are remarkably reliable. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see components replaced with plastic and still perform to spec. Sure, not for another 200,000 miles, but certainly longer than 10 milliseconds.
Re:It's a model (Score:4, Funny)
plastic's old and busted, hot metal is new hotness (Score:3)
You savages are capable of melting metal, aren't you?!
Design of a open source robot to automate the metal casting process is left as an exercise for the student.
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geeze, just print the parts in wax and then do green sand or investment casting of whatever metal is suitable.
I've looked into this, and I haven't been able to find an open source wax extruder, only mentions of one. And the pictures of prints produced by it (for an art exhibit, from beeswax) looked pretty awful. So in the best case, there would be substantial cleanup to do after printing, and/or after casting.
However, there is such a thing as "lost PLA" casting. Yes, that's just what it sounds like...
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What does the People's Liberation Army have to do with casting?
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... or, you know, you could just print the damn thing in metal. It's not like it's going to take that much longer for 3D printers to be capable of printing in metal.
Oh, look: http://www.gizmag.com/3d-print... [gizmag.com]
Re:plastic's old and busted, hot metal is new hotn (Score:4, Interesting)
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Actual transmission gears are made from hardened steel. The parts, once cut have to be heat treated in order to withstand the extremes of actual use.
The plastic in a 3D printer is about the weakest form of plastic you will find.
I think 10 milliseconds was probably close.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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OK GO (Score:2)
The files are out there, find the torrent!
http://fortune.com/2015/01/13/... [fortune.com]
Re:Come on (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't download a car would you?
You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman's grieving widow. And then steal it again!
Downloading is STEALING.
Re:Come on (Score:5, Funny)
"Replacement for the real thing" (Score:4, Informative)
For about 10 minutes, yes.
Plastic gears are a bad idea whatever the application but I can't see any surviving 200+ lbft of torque being put through them.
Re:"Replacement for the real thing" (Score:5, Informative)
Never last 10 minutes. There is no way he could have achieved spec clearances with 3d printed parts.
What did he use for synchros? They are wear parts, typically made of brass. He'd need something softer then his regular plastic.
I bet this transmission can't even shift while turning at a real world RPM. Not twice anyhow, will eat itself.
Re:"Replacement for the real thing" (Score:5, Insightful)
Never last 10 minutes.
You are correct..
I'd like to point out though that this transmission is not totally 3D printed. Even as a model, there are metal parts in this thing. All he really did was 3D print the housing and gears and didn't really model the original article exactly but produced a 'working' representation of the actual thing. It has no synchronizers, I'm fairly sure it doesn't have the same gear ratio in each gear and he made the gear teeth much larger. Scaled up and made of metal, this thing wouldn't be all that useable for the average driver. It looks more like a truck transmission (18 wheeler) than something from a car.
As plastic, It wouldn't survive being bolted to the engine and if it did, just starting the engine and releasing the clutch would likely shear off the input shaft, even if it was in neutral. If it survived to that point, there is zero chance you'd get any kind of useful torque though to the wheels. 10 min is totally out of the question.
This will NEVER replace a real transmission for anything but a model plastic model...
Of course it is totally cool as a tool to teach mechanical engineering concepts with...
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All good points, but I'm still wondering where TFS got that the creator said that it would work as a replacement for the real thing. TFA doesn't say that anywhere. It seems that the submitter just made that up out of the blue?
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Doesn't look like he bothered with the synchros. And at the low input speeds his demonstration uses, they aren't necessary either. The dog clutches aren't spinning that fast so as to cause a lot of damage while engaging and they take no load in this demonstration.
And even on a real car transmissions, synchros are not actually necessary on real transmissions either; you just have to know the theory of how to shift.
Re:"Replacement for the real thing" (Score:4, Informative)
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Thanks for clearing that up. I have some followup questions: Will clothing stop bullets if we simply print "bulletproof" on it? Also, is it safe to use bleach to remove the pigment in my iris?
Thank you for asking. To answer your first question, if the bullets are plastic printed to the same scale as the transmission in the article, of course it will stop it. Even if they filled it with gunpowder, the plastic shell casing will fail, and the bullet won't have enough mass to go through the paper AND the clothing.
In answer to your second question, it's 100% safe for me if you bleach your iris.
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Plastic gears are a bad idea whatever the application
Not true. Plastic gear have lower friction, less vibration, and are far quieter compared to metal gears. They cannot handle the same torque, but composite engineering plastics can come very close. It is common for planetary gearboxes to use plastic for the initial high speed stage, and metal for the second (and/or third) high torque stages.
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I built a 3 speed out of Lego.
If we can find someone who built an engine we're almost there.
It would work just fine until... (Score:2, Interesting)
You put a load on it. Then it would be a bunch of dust. Now what is interesting is if you had one of those metal printers like they use for aircraft parts, this could get interesting for local mechanics in say 10 or 20 years if the price of raw material and printing goes down.
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Correct, your time frame of 10 to 20 years seems about right for metal material design firms to come up with something really strong that can come out of printer jet and make it into mass production.
Problem is ... how does one profit legally, I've got to guess that the above example is protected somehow?
Re:It would work just fine until Not really (Score:2)
"Journalists" ought to learn more about what they write and posters ought to do the same. "Man makes working model of 5 speed transmission" would be a better title. But what was the point?
RP metal parts have layer build thickness and microdroplets forming the parts meaning they have surface finish and tolerance issues that will never be solved to make a high volume "production" part with required properties in any economical time span.
The finer the build layer, the better the surface finish, the longer th
Pretty cool (Score:3)
Assembling a transmission like this isn't very useful. But I'd very much like to build a four speed transmission to use with an R/C car, and if I could print all the parts and then do for example lost PLA casting, I'd only have to do all the painstaking cleanup work of the cast parts and then assemble them.
I would have thought that by now you'd be able to call someone up and they'd just punch some buttons and a machine would spit you out some custom gears for a reasonable amount of money, but as far as I know that hasn't yet happened. Anyone know different?
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It's useful if you want to learn how a transmission works and how it is assembled.
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It's useful if you want to learn how a transmission works and how it is assembled.
It seems like an awful lot of printing for that. I can see making them as school models, though. Then it might actually be worth it.
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It seems like an awful lot of printing for that.
Sure, but what other manufacturing technique is faster while not being overly expensive ?
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Sure, but what other manufacturing technique is faster while not being overly expensive ?
Manufacturing is a classic "Pick 2 of the 3" type tradeoffs.
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Sure, but what other manufacturing technique is faster while not being overly expensive ?
As you know, it depends on how many of them you're going to make. If the answer is a lot, then injection molding is still dramatically cheaper, in spite of using the same materials in many cases. Only in three cases does 3d printing make sense: if you're not going to make many of something, if you literally can't make something any other way, or if it's one of those rare cases where it's actually cheaper because of complexity which is really just a sort of sub-point to #2.
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Injection molded parts are much stronger. No cold weld planes to de-laminate and plastic hardened up under pressure (liquid plastic is compressible).
So add 'and strength not critical' to all 3 cases where it makes sense.
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I would have thought that by now you'd be able to call someone up and they'd just punch some buttons and a machine would spit you out some custom gears for a reasonable amount of money, but as far as I know that hasn't yet happened. Anyone know different?
If you have the $$$ you can get all sorts of things printed. But while not being a public job-shop, Ford is using 3D printing for prototypes: Inside Ford's 3D Printing Lab, where thousands of parts are made [computerworld.com]
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Honestly, I'd rather just have gears ground from stock. And I would have imagined that by now this would just happen if you pushed some buttons. Like maybe you'd have some sort of lathe with different sizes of stock, and then that would turn to diameter and part before the gear went off to another machine to get ground. But gears are still very expensive, especially custom ones. I get why something like a crank would be expensive; it's either got to be welded expertly, forged into rough shape and machined,
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And I would have imagined that by now this would just happen if you pushed some buttons. Like maybe you'd have some sort of lathe with different sizes of stock, and then that would turn to diameter and part before the gear went off to another machine to get ground.
You just described a modern, automated manufacturing process. They exist (and are called CNC machines, not lathes), but they are not cost effective to the point that you want.
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You just described a modern, automated manufacturing process. They exist (and are called CNC machines, not lathes), but they are not cost effective to the point that you want
Actually, CNC machines which boil down to a lathe are definitely still called lathes. Like, for example, an automated thread-cutting lathe.
What's interesting is that they are not yet cost-effective to the point that I want. They're so cheap now, the only reason must be that people who have them and are willing to make parts are already busy all the time.
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CNC lathes are not that cheap. Also they are dangerous, capable of eating themselves, require skilled operators and programmers and use up tooling.
Also to make a finished gear you need heat treatment (outsource this, it's dangerous, dirty and expensive. Modern heat treatment is often done with molten cyanide salt baths.) and a precision rotary grinder (or a six+ axis mill incorporating a grinder) to cleanup the gear matching surfaces and bearing races after heat treatment.
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There is such machinery but it has been pretty expensive CNC type stuff for the last few decades. Which meant that you paid a very large premium for getting a single or a few parts. My Father was just visiting though and apparently he's built one of those DIY kit CNC machines in the basement. One of the things that he specifically mentioned as being very useful was it's ability to quickly and precisely turn out gears.
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My Father was just visiting though and apparently he's built one of those DIY kit CNC machines in the basement. One of the things that he specifically mentioned as being very useful was it's ability to quickly and precisely turn out gears.
I'd like to know very much what kind of equipment he's using for that.
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I'm not sure what the name of the kit is, but he installed it on a milling machine that has been in the family since the 40's or 50's. Quickly might be a relative term though. My understanding of the manual process for making gears is that it is very laborous and prone to error.
One another note he was showing me some videos of high speed machining that was really neat. Apparently machinists have known since the 40's that you could in theory do very high speed machining without coolant fluids, but the techno
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3D prints (Score:2)
I really don't want to troll, but these "articles" themselves are trolling. 3D printing as a form of non-useful replication is a waste of time, as the person could have likely acquired an equivalently non-functioning identical part for less.
3D printing something which is actually useful, functional replication, reduced cost, increased availability, etc...THOSE would be useful articles to read, since it can generate positive discussion and ideas to move the technology forward.
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Problem is, there aren't any of those. The nearest anybody seems to have found is printing gun parts, and that's only because the parts in question are weirdly regulated by the US government.
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Problem is, there aren't any of those. The nearest anybody seems to have found is printing gun parts, and that's only because the parts in question are weirdly regulated by the US government.
No, it seems there are at least a few good applications of 3D printing like the GP talked about such as 3D printed body part replacements like titanium jawbones. They are apparently cheaper than the alternatives, can be custom shaped to the patient, and be made faster than the alternatives. As materials improve the integration into the body is expected to improve as well. I agree though the summary of this one was bad. This was a good learning exercise and it was improperly changed to "Working" making it i
Re: 3D prints (Score:4, Insightful)
While they can buy it for less time and money and effort...
it's the ability to teach and do it.
What's amazing about science and scientist is ( and the human race in general)
, if they see it done, then they know they can repeat it.
Tinkering for the fun of it.
Re: 3D prints (Score:4, Insightful)
I really don't want to troll, but these "articles" themselves are trolling. 3D printing as a form of non-useful replication is a waste of time.
In this particular case I am not so sure it is a waste of time. The model was printed as parts and then hand assembled into the final product, and the TFA says that any person doing this would end up knowing how a real transmission was put together. Thus there is a lot of educational value in doing it.
I don't know if you have ever tried building a transmission (I haven't, but I have rebuilt a few motorcycle top ends).It also seems to me that being able to do a desk top build of a real transmission is going to be a hell of a lot easier and with far less mess than wrestling with 100 to 200lbs of metal.
Sure this transmission is nothing that couldn't have been produced with traditional injection molding, but I doubt that the tooling costs would have made it feasible to build a replica of the genuine toyota transmission for the number of people who would be printing this model.
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If you want to learn how a manual transmission works, get a junk small motorcycle engine, pull the head off and split the case. All of those fun gears in their oily shininess. For extra bonus points, do this on the kitchen table.
(Worked for me, my mother wouldn't let me near the kitchen for months.....)
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The 3D printing didn't have anything to do with it. Getting 10 failed transmissions from the junk yard, rebuilding a single good one, and using the others for various experiments would be cheaper and lead to far greater understanding. The fact that it was 3D printed is largely irrelevant and didn't make it any more accessible. If the goal was learning about transmissions, then my above example would garner far more knowledge. If it is to learn about 3D printing, there would be countless other examples (like
RRRRRRGGGHHH!!! (Score:4, Funny)
I mean oh that is pretty cool.
P> Seriously I feel like the kid at school who can't afford shoes because I don't have either a CNC machine or a 3D printer in the garage.
A replacement for the real thing? (Score:2)
It looks a little small to fit in my Toyota...
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I wonder if it would work any better for an appropriate-scale Toyota than a 1:1 scale print would work for a 1:1 scale Toyota. Square-cube law and whatnot. Even R/C cars have all metal gears these days if they are worth a crap, but the motor output has increased substantially since olden times. And I know full well that all the gears in my first R/C kit car were plastic (Futaba FX10) because I assembled the transmission myself. It had metal shafts and all plastic gears, and no bearings whatsoever either. It
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It looks a little small to fit in my Toyota...
Even scaled up to full size it would be useless in your Toyota. If it survived being installed, the first time you released the clutch with it in gear just about everything inside would self destruct. There is a *reason* manufacturers use steel in these things. If plastic worked, they would have GLADLY dumped the weight decades ago.
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Very true, but it takes at least a little mechanical knowledge to know that. It's immediately obvious to anyone from the article's video that it's just a scale model, yet in spite of the fact that a totally ignorant person can see in a matter of seconds that it can't be installed in an actual car, the summary still calls it "a replacement for the real thing."
Guy on the internet does something cool... (Score:3, Insightful)
So a guy on the internet does something cool (yes having a fully working 5 speed transmission model like that IS cool). It took about 3 comments for people who have never done anything worthwhile in their entire lives to start shitting all over it for a variety of stupid reasons.
Sad really.
But this is a cool hack by any measure.
Re:Guy on the internet does something cool... (Score:5, Informative)
To be fair, all of the negative comments relate to the the claim that, "Even though it is made up almost entirely of plastic, he says that it could function as a replacement for the real thing."
Had the article writer not said that (he must have misinterpreted the builder, a mechanical engineer who seems to know how transmissions work), and the submitter here not misrepresented it even further, the comments would likely be much different. It's all in the presentation. ErnieKey chose to present it as a drop-in transmission, which is not the way the article portrays it.
But how about what we really need ... (Score:3)
So far... why? (Score:3)
About the only thing I can think of that a 3D printer would be useful for would be to replace a little leg that you might break off of your keyboard. Or maybe even make one that's higher than the original. But 3k for a printer or $30 for a new keyboard? I'm voting for the new keyboard.
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3D printing is bar far the coolest fail ever.
Cooler Article from same site (Score:2)
http://3dprint.com/49406/tetra... [3dprint.com]
That shows a new nano-scale 3d printer that can create intricate objects in the 400x400mm range versus the 3x3mm range of other nano-scale printers of the same resolution.
THAT is some potentially revolutionary shiz!
okay so this is a model but... (Score:2)
and you can buy them [hobbylinc.com] probably cheaper than you can print them. But still it's pretty cool.
plus many more in order to assemble the device (Score:2)
Cracks (Score:2)
Re:LOL++ (Score:5, Insightful)
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Because of the stresses involved it likely wouldn't be a long term replacement. Those gears are typically cut from forged steel for good reason. The metal 3D printers I've read about don't produce products with the necessary qualities to work in this kind of application.
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The metal 3D printers I've read about don't produce products with the necessary qualities to work in this kind of application.
These days it's possible to 3d print Inconel, so you can get gears which are hard enough. But they still won't be as smooth as gears need to be, and they're going to need cleanup before use. And at that point, you might as well just cut and/or grind the gears traditionally.
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Hard is not sufficient. Hard is brittle. Gears are heat treated in tricky ways. Harden the surface while leaving the core tough.
You'd have to build big old gears to make them out of Inconel. HSS is a better material choice.
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1. reasonably works
Probably yes
2. is a cost-effective alternative to OEM.
No, well maybe considering how much a dealer chargers of OEM parts, but it wouldn't be cost effective for aftermarket.
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I would like to see this printed on a metal 3D printer and then see if it 1. reasonably works and 2. is a cost-effective alternative to OEM.
Question 1's answer: You could likely get a metal article out of a 3D printer that worked, but it would NOT be durable.
Question 2's answer: Not on your life. IF it was cost effective to 3D print alternative transmission parts, you could bet the OEM's and their parts suppliers would be jumping at the chance to save some coin. For transmission parts, they obviously are not doing that, so it seems obvious that it's not a cost effective approach.
But I think there is a third question you need to ask yourse
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Agreed. I'd also love to see one at the service desk at a car dealership.
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Why are we harping on this? Because he says it would work as a transmission in a real car if you scaled it up to full size. That is obviously hype. It may work LIKE the full sized version does, but it is not and never will be a viable replacement transmission, even for a short time.
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