Man 3D Prints a Working 5-Speed Transmission For Toyota Engines

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.

Comments

It's a model

[DogDude]

It's not a "working transmission" nor could it ever be. It's a model. Neat model, but just a model, nonetheless.

Re:It's a model

[BarbaraHudson]

Exactly. I'm getting almost as tired of these bugus 3d printing articles as I am of the kickstarter ones.

Re:It's a model

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[rot26]

I'm not sure that "plastic" means what you think it means.

Re:It's a model

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:It's a model

[hodet]

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.

Re:It's a model

[mrchaotica]

Considering how much filament costs, the junkyard transmission might be cheaper.

Re:It's a model

[Optic7]

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

[bws111]

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.

Come on

[finkployd]

You wouldn't download a car would you?

Re:Come on

[serviscope_minor]

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

[RavenLrD20k]

Boy these anti-piracy ads are getting really mean.

"Replacement for the real thing"

[leathered]

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"

[HornWumpus]

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"

[BarbaraHudson]

Considering this is only a scale model, I doubt that his plastic scale engine will generate even one-tenth that before it melts. And what would you use as the facing material on the clutch disk? Or the pressure plate? The thing is going to stink like a plastic bag caught on an exhaust pipe.

Re:"Replacement for the real thing"

[bobbied]

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...

Camelot!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's only a model

Re:LOL++

[bobbied]

This one wouldn't survive the engine starting much less than actually make it into gear... Assuming you could actually bolt the thing into place with the proper torque and not bust it first.... Plastic Transmissions, right....

RRRRRRGGGHHH!!!

[Charcharodon]

QUIT TEASING ME YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!! I CAN"T AFFORD A 3D PRINTER RIGHT NOW!!!

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.

Guy on the internet does something cool...

[serviscope_minor]

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...

[chihowa]

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.

Re: 3D prints

[onepoint]

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

[OzPeter]

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.

Re:plastic's old and busted, hot metal is new hotn

[currently_awake]

You don't want to make gears by casting, you want machined metal, probably with heat treating. You could definately prove the design this way though, before building a real one.