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

I posted a reply on the episode page with some ideasnot knowing this discussion was going on, perhaps some admin could post a message with a link to this discussion; to sum it up, lets not completly reinvent the wheel, but put some nice rims on it, I think the most efficient thing would be to start with an off the shelf can crusher and use the  wormgear assembly out of an adjustable car seat to draw it closed, this would be a good source of linear movement, so  you'd need to make a U- shaped bracket that pivots on the handle of the crusher, as well as pivoting on the carriage portion that moves along the leadscrew, it would need to be mounted so the lead screw ended before the bottom of the crusher, so you can still pu the can in it. you would need limit switches and some relays that would work as a reversing one-shot  motor starter. this could be accomplished with acouple relays, a limit switch to break the latch on the forward relay and strart the reversed relays so it automatically opens back up, then you'd need a limit switch to stop it when it's once again in the open position. then of course you could implemant some sort of start swith that is trigger when a can is placed in the crusher. otherwise you'd start button to start the whole process. I'll draw up a simple schematic with crude illustration and post it when I have time.

Deep C

I posted a reply on the episode page with some ideasnot knowing this discussion was going on, perhaps some admin could post a message with a link to this discussion; to sum it up, lets not completly reinvent the wheel, but put some nice rims on it, I think the most efficient thing would be to start with an off the shelf can crusher and use the  wormgear assembly out of an adjustable car seat to draw it closed, this would be a good source of linear movement, so  you'd need to make a U- shaped bracket that pivots on the handle of the crusher, as well as pivoting on the carriage portion that moves along the leadscrew, it would need to be mounted so the lead screw ended before the bottom of the crusher, so you can still pu the can in it. you would need limit switches and some relays that would work as a reversing one-shot  motor starter. this could be accomplished with acouple relays, a limit switch to break the latch on the forward relay and strart the reversed relays so it automatically opens back up, then you'd need a limit switch to stop it when it's once again in the open position. then of course you could implemant some sort of start swith that is trigger when a can is placed in the crusher. otherwise you'd start button to start the whole process. I'll draw up a simple schematic with crude illustration and post it when I have time.

Deep C