I built a pneumatic can crusher, but I wasn’t satisfied with with just crushing it, I wanted to flatten them. So I put it it on a lever, it has ~2.4 mechanical advantage. So it goes from ~160lbs from the cylinder to about 400lbs on the “squishy plate”.

Unfortunately, I was a little too hardcore, after a few tests, it managed to bend the entire base. Once I can get a some thicker metal I will put it back together.

Why do this? Because I have a tiny furnace and a mountain of cans that I melt down and cast into random shit.

  • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    How do these things work? I cant fathom how its able to do that, it looks like it barely moves? What sorcery is this?

    Also is it named after Futurama’s The Crushinstor?

    • CarbonAlpine@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 months ago

      Well the cylinder has a stroke length of ~8 inches (it’s a little less) it is 17 inches from the pivot point, the other arm is 6 inches from the pivot.

      When the cylinder is fully extended, the crushing plate will move down about 3 inches which is greater than the width of most cans. (At least greater than all of the cans I have.)

      It flattened cans sideways because I wanted to be able to put them through a shredder. It was very close to accomplishing that, if the base plate didn’t bend to shit, I’m sure it would have worked.

      Yes! But the crushinator is a big girl, mine couldn’t hold a candle to that, so she squishes instead of crushes!

    • CarbonAlpine@lemmy.worldOP
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      25 days ago

      Up or down? I’m still learning and trying to figure out the feed.

      Also, how did you know it’s the feed? What should I be looking for?

      • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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        25 days ago

        Feeder down or volts up. But I see your welder is Harbor Freight so that may be the best you can get although I have the HF Vulcan that has infinitely adjustable speed and volts. I assume you are using fluxcore wire? And the reason I say feed adjustment is too many bbs