automated can crushers

[patTeam241]

Another idea, you can use an electromagnet to crush cans, it'd be tougher, but more unique.

[Projectchon]

A bowling ball dorping at the top of the can...............i think this is the easiest way to do it.......( I sew some on tv too (school project), when i was at HK)

[Quatitos]

You could think about putting a proximity switch in there to sense the can since they only sense metal, then taking a plexiglass shield over the crushing area to add safety and just put a little limit switch to be actuated by the plexiglass when it is closed.

[coreyjon]

yea, the problem using a proximity switch, is that it used magnetics, and aluminum is well...not magnetic, it is classifiea as a "non-ferrous", or "non-ferromagnetic" metal.automated can crusher is a neat idea, we had to make hydrolic can crushers for an engineering class, and bot was that fun, we could crush anything that would fit in it. Being automated, I suggest using some type of saftey, if this is a cans go in until its filled to a certain point kind of deal, have a infared beam cutting across the top, and a receiver on the other side, then in your program add a delay, so that if the infared signal was cut off, or if the time it took for the ir beam to bounce off a object changes, and it stays changed for a long enough period of time, and if you had a pair of ir sensors in the "entry tube" to the crushing bin, so that if there was something blocking the ir in the crushing bin, and no obstruction of the ir sensors in the loading tube, it could proceed to crush, if for some reason there was a obstruction in the loading tube, then it would come back with a overfilled warning, or load tube obstruction - and not run until all the conditions where met. After it crushes the cans, perhaps you could have an automatic mechanism to push the crushed cans into an adjacent holding pen/garbage can.

to follow Kiss, just have two wires on the face of a wood plate, and have them connect a solonoid to it's power source. this would make it so you put the can in, and boom, it's dead.

[KenWittlief]

I think this sounds more like you dump a bag of cans into the machine, and it crushes them one by one

BTW, you cant get your deposit back if the cans are crushed.

[Pierson]

There was a thread on this maybe 2 or 3 years ago. I don't know if you'll be able to find it or not. There was a team who had built a can crusher to use as a fundraising device and my team was contemplating implementing it but we never did.

[Btower]

From a safety standpoint make it as simple as possible. Essentially you want it to be "Inherently Safe" such that you are not relying on controls, sensors, or actions by the loader to keep it safe. For instance feed the cans through a chute which is long enough to keep the loader's hand from reaching the crusher.

Ben