Homemade Can Crusher

[zapster]

Wouldn't be doing that if you lived in Michigan.

Or Mass.

...zap!

[boatbuoy]

or you can get a steel one on sale at harbor freight for $5.00. but not nearly as much fun.

[Mandau]

that is a can crusher monster edition... good recycle horror...

[enauman]

Here is one that I built that is fully automated. The only thing it doesn't do is drive the cans to the recycling center.

Link to the vacuum extraction system:
http://designnews.com/article/CA6478...dustryid=43664

Link the the crusher:
http://designnews.com/article/CA6328...dustryid=43664

Here is a description:
This was a fun project but it requires a lot of time and skill in several disciplines. The design could be simplified significantly, but it would lack the "gee whiz" factor. Having more than one remote station requires a method to control the path of air flow. I wanted to make it fully automated so each station has an optical sensor, door position switch and a pneumatically actuated air flow control door. There are also 3 indicator lights and a mode switch on each remote panel. The can crusher unit can be seen in the gadget freak archives (#84). I chose 3" (3.5"O.D.) PVC electrical EMT for the vacuum tubing. For the run from the patio to the garage I used large radius metal EMT elbows to give a faster overall velocity (the can averages about 70 MPH for the trip). For the run inside the garage I have the tubing runs around 3 walls to make it from my work bench to the crusher for effect. I could have made it diagonal but that wouldn''t have been as fun. Because I wanted the tubing as close to the walls as practical, I used 3" DWV, large radius, ABS elbows. The radius is a lot tighter than the metal elbows but the cans make the turns with no problem with a bang at each turn. You can follow the can around the walls from the banging at each turn. This slowed the velocity to about a 50 MPH average. The 2 runs are joined together right above the crusher entrance using an ABS DWV ''wye'' connection. The vacuum line enters below where the 2 runs are joined using a ''wye'' connection that is a straight 3" feedthrough with a 2" branch. The 2" tubing penetrates the garage wall directly opposite from my air compressor shed which allowed me to put the blower in the shed to reduce the noise to almost nothing. I used a Harbor Freight dust collector for the vacuum source. I added a SSR to be able to control the power to it. I also fabricated a butterfly valve in a section of 3" EMT which has a pneumatic actuator to rapidly control the application or removal of vacuum the the system. The butterfly valve is connected to the inlet port of the blower and reduced down to 2" for the wall penetration. Right below where the 2" vacuum line joins the tubing is the flow control door the can exits the vacuum tubing and enters the can crusher. The flow control door on the exit was necessary to keep maximum flow in the tubung until the last possible moment. Having the system under the control of the MCU makes it really simple for the operator. All the operator does is flip a toggle switch on the remote panel, open the access door, insert the can and close the door. The indicator lights show when the job is done (approx 1.5 seconds). The actual sequence of events goes like this: When the toggle switch is flipped to one of the 2 modes, the MCU starts the blower, opens the air supply valve feeding the surge tank on the crusher and gives a green ready light on the panel. When an access door is opened, the MCU turns off the ready light and turns on the ''door open'' light. At this point when the can is dropped in, the optical sensor tells the MCU which remote station has a can in it. When the access door is closed, the MCU opens the butterfly valve to depressurize the vacuum tubing and opens the flow control door on the remote station to allow the air (and hence the can) to flow towards the can crusher. The MCU waits for the optical "arrival" sensor to be triggered by the can passing at which point the MCU opens the exit door and closes the vacuum butterfly valve and the can coasts the last 6 feet under it''s own momentum. The can drops into the crusher''s magazine and it''s sensors and actuators finish off the can which then drops into the trash bag in a holder right below the exit of the crushing ram. The can crusher magazine is made from a large radius EMT elbow and a short section of straight tubing. The magazine has 2 small rams in the vertical section to sequence the loading ogf the cans into the breech of the crushing cylinder. The sequencer alows a user to feed cans in one right after the other in the ''multi'' mode. That way, if you have a bag of cans to be processed, you don''t have to wait for each can to be finished befor inserting the next one. When ''multi'' mode is selected on the remote panel, the MCU leaves the flow control door open on the station and the user feeds the cans in through it instead of opening and closing the access door each time. There is a lot of smarts built in to the software for things like sensor failure, access doors opened when they shouldn''t be, can stuck in the crushing exit ETC. Ther is an LCD on the control module on the crusher that reads out diagnostic messages to tell me if something isn''t working like an optical sensor failure ETC. I have 2 toggle switches on the control module for maintence so I can turn the blower on, excercise the actuators ETC. All in all there are 7 optical sensors, 2 micro switches, 7 rams with 7 solenoid valves (8 coils), 5 toggle switches, a main air supply valve, RS232 port, programming port, LCD display and a solid state relay. The 40 pin MCU has only 1 I/O port left. As I said, it could be simplified a lot but it wouldn''t have been as fun to build or operate. I wanted to make the can travel as fast as possible so a lot of features went into that effort. Cheers, Ed

[o.c.d.]

Nice!!! I drink too much beer (so I'm told), but that outfit is a bit over kill for me. Looks like it was a hoot to build though, and watch.

o.c.d.

[MatthewF]

hahah awesome .. way to go green

[hturner781]

Would you please post a shop drawing of your heavy duty can crusher. The photos are nice, but do not show dimensions.

Keep up the good work.
hturner781

[bluerthanblue]

I want to know exactly you did it, because I got mine online and I'm not sure if it's working perfectly. Has anyone of you tried this?

http://www.thehardwarecity.com/?sku=2436731

[eyspy]

I got a 40 ton press, whack em in there and it's flat as a dime when it comes out !!

Now THAT'S overkill

[Magnetic Mechanic]

Cool!

[SpyGuy]

Geez .... and here I used to drop the head of a 20-pound sledgehammer on my recycled cans just to avoid stomping 'em ..... nice work, pretty overkill, but nice nonetheless.

[senti]

Great job you got here. However, I have a faster solution, to get a can crusher online. Less hassle.

[WhiskeyDeltaBravo]

That would be a major engineering feat for me.
$300 can crusher
I just dump'em out on my driveway and run over'em a few times with my truck

[rad3766]

Shoot, I gotta get glasses maybe, I thought the title of the thread was.......
Homemade Car Crusher. I think that would be up to the task.

[strube1369]

Don't think that's gonna wear out any time soon! Nice job.

[cmartman46]

Dude! Awsome! You are a pro! But man I paid $6 @harbor frieght for a can crusher. But I really admire your pro effort! You ought to build a experimental plane! You'll enjoy that!
Nice work!

[MPK]

Wow, that is one that will never break or wear out. Will last forever.

[agteacher]

I was looking for a project for my students, this one looks great. Does anyone know the dimensions of the pieces to cut out?

That would be a great help.

thanks in advance

[ToolBoxTavern]

Nice. Something else I think I need.

[CosmicRambler]

I was looking for a project for my students, this one looks great. Does anyone know the dimensions of the pieces to cut out?

That would be a great help.

thanks in advance

Yeah, it would be nice to have the dimensions, I might make some for Xmas gifts.

This one is a copy of the Harbor Freight cheap one but will last. Plus he got the handle better and longer. Getting good compaction. You might look at my Magnum Dominator design too. Again that is a knock off design of one of the Harbor Freight ones, but miles better. All that Harbor Freight stuff is pure junk.

The Dominator design is pure fun and you get that "sound of destruction". You feel the satisfaction.

I've played around trying to design another one. The goal is better compaction. It appears the can can not be totally crushed in a manual type design because of the rim and keep a tight neat round foot print. You need massive amounts of force to do it brute force style. You want no jagged parts sticking out to cut the storage bags.

The solution, might be to make a sort of die to accept the necked down top portion of the can, to deform the entire can into a smaller diameter, then have a round piston type ram come thru and basically blow the can thru itself. Probably going to take a fair amount of force to do it but far less than a total brute force method. The ram piston will be smaller diameter than the can to pass thru the die.

I've tried experiments cutting the rim, dinking it, deforming, whatever but nothing works to get better compaction. They have designed the can well. So I plan to try to blow the rest of the can up into the rim area and fill it in with metal. Hopefully keeping maybe a smaller diameter final reject neat button of metal.

Waiting for a guy to get me some pipe. Go bold and try to design something new. Gets tricky to make it simple to build but still perform to specs. This particular design here is good, simple and has decent performance. How to get good force multiplication can be another part of the problem. Then it has to have a decent cycle rate. Without spending a fortune. And it has to be practical with extreme long working life.

For everyday, ho hum use, this is probably the best design. Tho it might be better with some type of auto reject feature. So many requirements.

But also be careful around younger folks, these puppies can be dangerous critters, especially if they start sticking your hands in here to prove who is brave and who can "Take It". It will happen.

[jdchmiel]

what welder did you use to make it? How about to make the cuts? The holes for bearings?

[RaptorDuner]

The OP hasn't been on here since 2009. As for AGteacher, I would have the students come up with dimensions. Have experiments to determine the force required to crush the can (linkage & handle length) and actually measuring the can and bearing for the rest. These are the skills that are missing in most of today's programs.

[CosmicRambler]

Yep, too many so called teaching programs hand out dumbed down projects. You didn't say the age of those involved.

You actually can guessimate the dimensions by just putting the pixs into a drawing program and overlaying with dots / grid and scaling it off versus things shown that will have a known size as the starting point. That will get you well into the ball park.

Then I would prototype in wood or even paste board to get a feel for the operation. So much easier, faster and can be modified a lot of times. Nothing like a working prototype, the first one of everything is always a bit flawed. Go to metal once the production model is fully firmed up.

Actually I would go bold and try to design something using pipe. Do the entire process from an idea stage. The only manual can crushers I've seen on the web that sort of impress me after building the one I did, are made from pipe. Most of those, probably can be improved. Probably less things to consider, easier to build. The trick is to get the really killer model. Lay out the specs hoped for before starting the project.

[Scott Young]

A cool project for an ag class is to give them the picture and let them replicate it. They can go for an exact copy, equivalent, or a modified version.

[MiBigfoot]

We have a 10 cents deposite on returnables. Machines have to be able to read the bar code.

Only carbonated drinks have a deposit. There are many others such as juices that do not. Aluminum cans weigh very little and they take up ALOT of space unless you crush them.