CanCrusher

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Creator:
ramgarden
Status:
Design Phase
Born On:
14:43, 28 December 2011 (CST)
Last Updated:
13:58, 18 March 2013 (CDT)

Overview

Tired of stomping your cans to make more fit in the recycle bin? Pulling down on a manual crusher just isn't quite easy enough and takes too long if you have a whole bag of cans brought in that needs crushing. That's why you need a pneumatic auto-crusher that crushes the can with 300 lbs. of force and auto-ejects them down into the bin! Or some kind of machine with a big hopper on top that you can just dump all the cans in at once, walk away, and have a bin full of individually crushed cans when you get back from doing more important work!

Here are some examples of how this might work:

Can Crusher Video Examples Playlist

Here's my idea for an electric motor driven (instead of air or hydraulic) can crusher. It uses a gear force multiplier to increase the crushing force supplied by an electric motor.

Sketchup sketch


Here's my drawings I did in Inkscape to feed to the laser cutter for the gears, gearbox, and motor mount.

LASER food!

Costs, Parts, etc.

So far the only things I've spent my own money on are:

  1. 0.220"x18"x24" Clear Acrylic Sheet from Home Depot: $19.97 + tax = $21.57