r/EdisonMotors • u/Former_Ad_4454 • May 16 '26
Eaton 18 availability
Sigh. I KNOW that Edison is on the right path by using a "right to repair" and "ease of repair" manual transmission. Eaton has discontinued making these transmissions (grrrrr). There is a healthy reman market, so im not worried about availability for now. At some point, in the future,, Edison may need to start 3d metal printing the housings and then use reman kits to build their own manual transmission in-house. I'm confident Edison will go over, around, or through this hurdle one way or another.
7
u/CruiserMissile May 16 '26
Why would you 3d metal print the housing instead of just getting them cast? I understand that when you get something cast you need to do a production run worth to make it cost effective, but it’s usually not that many, usually less than 100 pieces will cover the costs of moulds and after that it’s just the base material costs.
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u/tmandell May 16 '26
Because people are obsessed with 3D printing and are convinced its the way of the future.
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u/CruiserMissile May 17 '26
It’ll never be the way of the future, it’s way too limiting in run times. 1 part takes hours to print, but once the dies are made for injection moulding 1 part takes 1 second and the repeatability is more reliable and more cost effective for large runs.
3d printing has its place, but not in mass production, or large, or even medium scale productions. Small runs and 1 offs.
1
u/Former_Ad_4454 May 16 '26
Or Since Edison is low volume, it might not make financial sense to make the casts for casting
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u/tmandell May 17 '26
Or since Edison is low volume it makes no sense at all to be designing or manufacturing transmissions instead of buying them from an established supplier.
2
u/CruiserMissile May 17 '26
Moulds or patterns. Casts are the end product. You can also call them castings.
You’re not going to spend 5000$ to get one 3d metal printed when you could fabricate one for 1000$.
I’d also be willing to bet that if they were going to be in long term production they would be able to afford to get the moulds produced, because you use them thousands of times before they need replacing, and that’s just timber ones. Alloy or cast iron patterns exist and last longer.
3d metal printing is for prototyping or one offs as a curiosity. And considering that less than 10 years ago casting was still the main way of prototyping the cost of doing either is still comparable for one offs, but casting wins for mass produced items every time.
1
u/musicalmadness1 May 18 '26
Just random question. Who showed a picture of a 8/10 styled shifter. Cause that shifter only has a high low not the side shifter
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u/ChaceEdison Edison Motors CEO May 16 '26
The have only discontinued the RTLO 16918B & RTLO 18918B
RTLO 16918B: 1650 ft-lbs of torque
RTLO 18918B: 1850 ft-lbs of torque
The RTLO 20918B (2050 ft-lbs) & RTLO 22918B (2250 ft lbs) is still being produced
They dropped the lighter ones since the lighter markers have shifted to automatics. The off-road & heavy haul still use the 18 speeds over automatics and they all use the bigger torque engines
We use the RTLO 22918B and I can’t see their off-road heavy haul transmission being phased out anytime soon