Crushing Cans?

[Skyco]

One of my boys when he was about 10 discovered he could crush cans paper thin in my 20 ton shop press:laughing:

Kinda slow but if you really want to crush them good....

 

[MossRoad]

About 10-15 years ago when aluminum was quite high in price, the local recycling company gave us one of these Monarch can crushers to use in our building and payed us for the crushed cans, too.

YouTube - Monarch Aluminum Can Crusher

We made a very tall rack for it and it would hold several hundred cans at a time. We could load it up and walk away.

In a nutshell, it had an electric motor with a gear reduction that spins a wheel with an arm attached to the outside edge that pushed a ram. When the ram is extended it makes up the bottom of the supply tray. As the ram retracts it makes a pocket large enough for one can. The first can drops in the pocket as the ram reaches the rearward point of travel. The rest of the cans roll down the ramp and are held up by the first can. The ram comes forward and compresses the can on the long axis. The rams length of travel is about 1/4" shorter than the width of the can, so it never puts huge force on the ram and the cans get smashed down to 1/4" thickness. As the ram retracts the can drops through a smaller slot in the bottom of the pocket, the next can rolls in and it repeats.

The machine was not fast, about 20 cans per minute, but is was strong and dependable.

Something similar could probably be made by a handy person for less than the $1900.00 price tag of the machine! :shocked:

 

[sixdogs]

When we lived in a very remote location we were foced to recycle with long intervals. My method for cans was to remove the bottom with an electric can opener and then flatten the can. Turned out to be the only solution for us since trying to crush the can with the bottom still attached proved difficult.
We could get a lot of cans in a small space that way.

 

[Taylortractornut]

A few years ago I went to a scrap yard that te old man built most of his machinery. He sold salvaged parts and made a can crusher from a pair trailer spindles and tires. He mounted them barely touching and used different pressures to get everything right. They took the tires and spindles and made a frame to hold them and on one tire he welded large vbelt pulled off a combine on the rim. Then used a big 220v motor, At firs he used a tiller motor till he found the 220. One tire was on top of the other with a hopper on top.

The opening in the side let it spit the cans into a van trailer. Later he built a slower speeded one that was horizontal tat dropped them into a drum. He still used the thrower model the most.

 

[aczlan]

How about a can crusher made as follows:
Get the driveshafts, wheel bearing/brake and wheel assemblies from 2 identical FWD cars.

Mount the tires to be ~3/4" apart and connect each one to a sprocket or gear, connect all of this to a motor, put something solid and removable on the top and bottom of the tires (covering the crush section) for safety and to keep the cans in.
My idea of how it could look:


Aaron Z

 

[Uncle Doug]

To quote Roy Jackson, "TANSTAAFL!"

EDIT: Here's another thought. . . Chipper-shredder? Hmm. . . .

Our local recycle dealer uses a system like this which blows into a covered trailer.

Not sure if a trash compactor would work, but a modifed log spliiter to compress blocks of them at once might wook.

 

[MossRoad]

I built one with a 2" air cylinder, and a lever type control valve. Added quick dump valves and mufflers to the cylinder to speed it up and make it quieter. I average about 45 cans per minute.

The box I keep in the house holds about 80 cans (~$2.00 worth) and I can crush them in jsut under 2 minutes and the air compressor only has to run for 35 sec to catch up. With a 15A motor @ 220 I figured it one time to be under 4cents to catch up.

I'll try to get a vid when I get home or some pics.

I'm sure many of us would love to see pictures and videos... we are a visually stimulated bunch! :laughing:

 

[DANOCHEESE]

See if you can find an old silo laoder, filler.blower. These are the units used to blow silage to the top of a silo. Turn the chute horizontal and aim towards a piece of plate steel. Run the blower fairly slow to start with, Note the blower hooks up to your PTO. This will smash cans as fast as you dump them in. You can also get a piece of the fill tube and direct it directly into the back of a truck. With a plate of the end. Imagien cans going about 400 miles an hours coming to a sudden stop.

I'm about 300 miles away from the unit, so no pictures.

 

[RobertN]

Some years back an old family friend of my Grandparents built a crusher. He was very handy, worked for years around sawmills up in the mountians. In the small town he lived in, one of the fraternal organizations had a yearly shindig(Lions or Elks I think; was 25 years ago...). they got beer and soda in cans for the picnic fundraiser.

So Duck(was his CB nickname from back in the 1960's), decided to build a crusher.

He had a small car with a blown motor. He took the crank, and cut it down to just one piston. I think he cut the block up to get the main journals. Anyways, he mounted this shortened crankshaft, single piston, and flywheel to a pillow block kinda setup. Then he took a piece of large pipe, about 4" dia, and cut it in half to make a trough where the piston slid back and forth.

On the end of the pipe section, he weled an end, with a slot. This was mounted on a frame attached with the crankshaft assembly.

Next, he adapted a washing machine motor with a reostat and a couple pulleys, to the flywheel.

Presto, can smasher.

That worked really well, so then he made a feed chute for it.

It was a really slick setup. They wound up with cases and cases of beer and soda cans. By the time he had the setup refined with the feed chute, it would process a lot of cas in a short time.

 

[beppington]

- Level your FEL & drop it on 'em.

- Drive your tractor over 'em.

- Put a piece of plywood on top of 'em & drive your tractor on the plywood.