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

Hey Everyone--

I've really been enjoying reading through your ideas! We've passed them along to Ben, and will soon be selecting a winner. Feel free to continue posting ideas here if you like, but the official Ben Heck t-shirt giveaway for this one is now closed.

Did I mention we have just launched a new contest in which Ben gives away his Halloween portal shirt?

Cheers,
Sagar

My suggestion would be to look at hydraulics. Take a page from how a log splitter works, instead of a wedge at the end for splitting a log, have a flat surface to crush the can.

Use a system simialer to a crankshaft and piston in an engine.

You could try a pneumatic cylinder and compressed air maybe.

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

A 12VDC Automotive starter motor can be used direct drive to directly operate the screw drive.  It should have sufficient speed & torque to do the job.  Bonus: it can be operated green device, powered by a 12V battery charged by a solar panel.  Alternatively, it can be charged with a standard 12V battery charger.

Keeping Occam's Razor in mind, a simple dent on the side of the can should compromise it enough to have the 2nd version of the electromagnetic cylinder work (it appeared to have enough smashing power anyway).

Here in India, we get a citrus juicer for ~$20. It's a mechanical device, somewhat similar to what Ben has already tried with that stepper motor.

The key thing here is that you have to deliver the same energy to the can to crush it. If you try doing it instantaneously, like with the solenoid, you'll need a lot of power [Power = Work/Time]. If you design a system that takes even ~2 seconds to do that, you'll have drastically decreased the power you need.

In the juicer shown above, you place half an orange in the bulb just above the glass, and then rotate the lever until the upper portion presses the fruit. I think this can be adapted to the can crusher as well. Just use a heavier weight and use some mechanism to press the end of the liver. Not that I need to say this here, but the longer the rod, the greater the torque, or in other words, the more you have to move the rod, greater is the time it will take to press it, hence lower is the power required.

when is be going to continue this project or has he abandoned it forever???

he is a graphical design person that is why he is so good with AI and all the computer programs.