This time we will look at a CAD design for a hydraulic can crusher that is created by Scott C and can be found here. This hydraulic can crusher is designed using computer animation simulator and it is a working model of a device that would automate the crushing process and thus would give you more free time. This Hydraulic crusher is designed to work with 12V power pack and that means it does not require a lot of electricity as well as it is made from some high strength steel parts so it would not bend or break under any conditions. The overall structure is pretty simple and you have a hydraulic pump at the bottom that pumps air into the cylinder that is positioned at the top of this device.
As you can see from the renderings this is a fairly tall structure that is designed to sit in an upright position and has a high strength steel structure at the bottom that would hold the rest of the device up front. The cylinder that does the crushing is put at the top of the structure and is secured in place with a single high strength screw. As the liquid gets into this cylinder it would push the piston down into that tube and in doing so would also crush that aluminum can. This crusher is made for small 12 oz beverage cans but it seems it has just enough space to also put a 16 oz can inside there but I do not know if the actual design wan built for that. The whole upright part of this crusher is a heavy duty steel tube that would guide that cylinder head and would not allow the can to get tossed away from the force of crushing. As you can tell from the design then the cylinder would work with a flip of the switch by pressing it down the can would get crusher and then when you pull the switch up the cylinder would pull up and you could take out that crushed can.
The overall design and the thought of a device like this is great but I see some major problems that could prevent this device from being mass produced. First of all as I mentioned the can size feels too small and I bet the designer has not thought about bigger 16 Oz cans as well as those huge 24 Oz cans. Another downside of the design is that strange can placement as you would put it inside that tube but when you need to pull it out it would be really unwieldy. And the last part that I do not like is that you have to manually press the switch to crush that can and because of that I feel that a manual hand operated can crusher would be much more convenient.