Wanting to deign and possibly build a pneumatic can crusher.

[CaspianTiger]

HI, I am essentially trying to make a car jack style machine except to crush cans rather than to jack up cars.

I do not know much about pneumatic systems and how complex they are. The concept will be that a hand operated pneumatic device will crush a can against the housing.

I have been allocated 50 pounds to buy parts and i have a lot of materials and tools i can use free of charge.


Does anyone have any pointers or information i can use to help build a device like this.

How difficult will it be to create a hydraulic system of pumps and then to use the power to crush a can?

 

[Ranger Mike]

Check out Mcmaster Carr

http://www.mcmaster.com/#bottle-jacksstandard bottle jack and angle iron" cage " would do it...they also have many air cylinders
one stop shopping for the creative mind

 

[Mech_Engineer]

You'll have to decide which direction you want to crush the can in, and how much force you think it will take. It looks to me like 50 pounds will not be enough money, because that will basically be how much a pneumnatic cylinder will cost. You should also decide if you will be using some sort of mechanical advantage in a linkage.

Keep in mind that a crushing mechanism will be pretty dangerous for the opertor's fingers and/or hands without some safety guards in place. It looks to me like it can take somewhere around 150 pounds of force to crush an aluminum can longitudinally if the force is parallel to the can and the can's sides are undamaged.

 

[CaspianTiger]

You'll have to decide which direction you want to crush the can in, and how much force you think it will take. It looks to me like 50 pounds will not be enough money, because that will basically be how much a pneumnatic cylinder will cost. You should also decide if you will be using some sort of mechanical advantage in a linkage.

Keep in mind that a crushing mechanism will be pretty dangerous for the opertor's fingers and/or hands without some safety guards in place. It looks to me like it can take somewhere around 150 pounds of force to crush an aluminum can longitudinally if the force is parallel to the can and the can's sides are undamaged.

I predict a force of 500N will be needed to crush an aluminium can axially.

If the cost is too high that is ok, i have chosen this concept to design within a group where we will all be making a design. We will choose the best.

I was thinking of a platform with a jack mechanism on it, a house will connect to the platform and the can will be inserted into the housing via some opening, the opening will be closed (perhaps a cage) and then the jack will be manually jacked up crushing the can.

The device needs to crush a can to 20 percent of its original volume and has a maximum of 10 seconds to crush a can and a minute to crush four cans.

Do you know any good resources with details on pneumatic systems that apply to this idea?

Thanks. Any help is greatly recieved.