How should Ben continue building his automatic can crusher? Post your idea + you might get a free Ben Heck t-shirt!

Ben needs to get serious about this can crusher.  If there's not a big enough commercial solenoid out there ( 150lb with 6" stroke would do it) then there are plenty of other ways to crush the can electronically.  How about a 2 hp pump motor instead of a wimpy little stepper and timing belt.  Further, there are already plenty of can crushers that require you to walk over and place the can in the crusher.  How about a box that sits on top of a garbage can that you just pitch the can into from across the room.  The box senses the can via light/PIR/magnetic field/electric field/sonar/whatever.  Pitch the can in and pow it's smashed flat by a moveable side of the box, then it drops into the garbage can below.  A counter counts cans, and of course it has to twitter/text/email after every can is smashed, and when the garbage can is nearly full and needs to be emptied.

The problem with can crusher 1.0 is that Ben hooked up with a Longhorn engineer instead of an Aggie engineer.

Lets see this thing done up right.

--steve

Ben needs to get serious about this can crusher.  If there's not a big enough commercial solenoid out there ( 150lb with 6" stroke would do it) then there are plenty of other ways to crush the can electronically.  How about a 2 hp pump motor instead of a wimpy little stepper and timing belt.  Further, there are already plenty of can crushers that require you to walk over and place the can in the crusher.  How about a box that sits on top of a garbage can that you just pitch the can into from across the room.  The box senses the can via light/PIR/magnetic field/electric field/sonar/whatever.  Pitch the can in and pow it's smashed flat by a moveable side of the box, then it drops into the garbage can below.  A counter counts cans, and of course it has to twitter/text/email after every can is smashed, and when the garbage can is nearly full and needs to be emptied.

The problem with can crusher 1.0 is that Ben hooked up with a Longhorn engineer instead of an Aggie engineer.

Lets see this thing done up right.

--steve

Geez, Folks, we need something spectacular here!

First, Ben should charge a nice, large bank of caps to a high-ish voltage. Then, using a trigerred spark gap, discharge the capacitors into a robust 1 or 2 turn coil, placed tightly around the can. Presto! One blown-apart coil, one crushed can =]

Of course, if you build it strongly enough, the coil will survive, but it's easier for the experiment if the coil is disposable. That way, the discharge current is actually set by the resistive losses in the circuit, together with a small amount of inductance. The inductance itself should be minimised to avoid resonance effects. We want ALL of the energy to hit the coil and be converted into an intense, but short-lived magnetic field. Too much heat will melt the can...

Someone elses idea.  http://hackaday.com/2007/10/15/electromagnetic-aluminum-can-crushing/