The story behind the 'Bicycleshredder'

Precious Plastic Machine Development
#1

Hey guys and girls!
During the summer the Kunststoffschmiede was requested to do workshops or presentations in Dresden, our hometown, but also in several other cities in Germany. That was a pleassure and we had lot of fun, but one thing that was really annoyingly was the transport of the machines. Especially the huge shredder, about 40-50 kilos, I guess. Another big disadvantage was the power source (380V/16A)….

So we decided to work on a new machine!

We shared our vision of a new shredder in our local network and asked people to participate designing and building a shredder. 4 people said: Yes I will! Thank you, and thanks to the germany ministry of environment, which financed this project! With Pascal, Paul and Carl from the Kunststoffschmiede team we were 7 persons. During august and september we began to make a plan and in october we built it.

In the following post’s we will share the story behind. But first of all some impressions;-)

#2

It all started with an analysis about what does the machine have to do:
– mobility → has to be carried on a bike
– human powered / independently from electricity → we transport it with a bike so we also have to create the energy to shred plastic
– lightweight, compact and solid → not that easy:)
– maximum safety priority and easy to use → we work a lot with kids or youth groups. So everything has to be safe and simple to understand.
– shred plastic efficient
– leakproof

Solving approaches of the main parts

Mobility. Here we considered 2 options:

1. One bike firmly connected with the shredding unit
pro:
– one single functional system
– super mobil, everthing is on the bike
conrta:
– in case the bike is defective the shredder is not working
– heavy bike

2. Modular shredding unit you can connect to every bike
pro:
– the shredding unit without the bike is compact to store
– people can use their own bike to shred plastic
– some people are smaller some are bigger → we are able to change the bike for differnt body sizes
contra:
– no process gurantee → every bike is a litler bit different. We can’t be sure that ther shredder is working with ever bike.

We decided to make option 2 with restriction: Only 28″ bikes

This is one of the first sketches:

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#3

Hey you all!

I had some personal deadlines and could not answer in june.
Here are the updated plans!

Right now we are working on Version 2! More safety and a better handling.
But still we need two persons to shred the plastic;)

peace
carl

#4

what if you add hydraulic compact power* to be stronger
also try release 2 honda motorbike
then cover all moving parts for safety
i hate seeing naked moving parts such as chains, belts, pulleys

cheers
Alan of mosque.com
webcintanabi@gmail.com
please see my
http://onearmy.world/community/forums/topic/lets-get-real-marketplace-categ-chicken-cage/#post-145387

* google: Hydraulic compact power packs, dc power pack manufacturer, supplier, exporter , hydraulic compact power pack with excellent quality

#5

@pex12 funny you should say that I thought it would be quite funny to do recycling ‘spin’ classes…!! thank you though I will send them a message

#6

@jacky, pm them; but as already stated by the Dresden guys; there are issues to be fixed; i’d also recommend to consider the variant of having the shredder in front of you; otherwise 2 people are needed to run this thing; well except you wanna train basket ball whilst cycling …

#7

Hey there, I can’t find the original file either… can someone show me where it is because I think it’s probably right in front of my eyes but I can’t see it! love the design though!

#8

I, too, am very interested in seeing your updated designs!

I’m in the process of working with a non-profit bicycle repair/recycle program who are interested in turning some bikes into recycle machines. Your help would be greatly appreciated!

#9

Hey awesome ! I want to make that one !

Can you upload your new construction plan please ? And thank you very much for sharing !

Nico.

#10

hey,

first of all, we found some errors in the files for the casing parts.
we will fix it and then we will upload it again. sorry!

@ricardopinya
Tahnks!
mostly we shred pp. a few weeks ago i tested hdpe bottle caps. the thickness is up to 1,5 or 2mm i guess. at the moment we have no date about how much kg per hour. i think it’s a little bit more then the normal pp shredder produce.
We have to check how long they last. but you have enough material to resharp them 2-3 times.
mhm, we build the frame to put it on any 28″ bike. it’s not easy to find a design which fits to every bike, so we focused on 28″ because these are very common in europe.

peace
carl

#11

Thats really cool! I’m really having problems to find out everything (without spending hundreds of euros) on the classic PP Shredder (as lots here) and also wanted an efficient and ecological system to power it so this is perfect!

Which kind of plastic did you manage to shred with it? Its HDPE an option with this method? Could you tell us which kind of plastic did you successfully shred and which thickness?

I really liked the hopper you’ve designed and extra security it gives as I also wanted to use it in an educational way. How much plastic do you manage to shred for hour? How little you have to pre-cut the plastic input? And what about the blades used? Which kind of maintenance you apply on them (resharping, substitution, how long do they last)?

I love the way you attached it to the bike but i think i would be nice to be able to put any bike available and just transport the machine. I don’t know if you kinda thought about this and what problems you faced (I can imagine that the variety of bicycles makes it quite hard to adapt)? Did you measure how loud it is while working?

Thanks a lot for sharing the whole design, awesome job guys!

#12

nice, i wanted to build a home trainer some time ago and yours seems perfect. any chance you re-arrange all that one can feed the hopper whilst cycling more easily ?

#13

and that’s the video!

#14

whooop, we’re finally ready to share with you all our drawings, files, etc…

here are the blueprints!

#15

I see @kunststoffschmiede, thanks for answering.

The one similar to yours runs at about 200 rpm, and is quite bulky. The blades are also set at a bit of an angle so each cut kind of shears the material. I’ll take some pics the next time i clean it out 🙂

#16

thanks @timslab!

the problems you mentioned are the major problems we have with our precious plastic shredder. with our “new” design we are a lot better.
a little bit of dust yes, but not that much. for all i know the big industrial ones are producing dust too. we focused on getting the shredder as much leakproof as we could. the hopper is crucial, furthermore it’s good for the safety;-)

statically charged. it’s like the dust. a little bit but not in comparison to our other model. we are using a metal box for the collection box, so maybe this beneficial to “discharge” the plastic.how fast rotates your shredder?

peace
carl

#17

Nice work guys… can’t believe I’m only finding this topic now. I like the simplification of parts. Fun to use too…

We’ve got a shredder here that functions the same as yours (same blade design + high rpm) but it creates a lot of dust and statically charged plastic that just sticks to everything. Do you have similar problems? Maybe its a matter of ours just being too big and fast 😕

#18

For the shredding unit we also have considered two variants.

**1. The fast one (about 1100RPM / 180-250W)

**Pro:
– low torque fluctuation
– we have a working prototype
Contra:
– special cutting knives and axe
– very fast → maybe more dangerous than a slow one

**2. The slow one (about 100RPM / ~2000W)

**Pro:
– we have a working shredding unit in our workspace (but with a big electric motor)
– less dangerous speed
Contra:
– a lot of power / torque is necessary
– fluctuating torque → not good for any drive source
– heavy → a lot of lasercut parts

We comoared both variants with the proporties of a bicycle. It is possible for a person to get 200W out of a bike and with the right transmission we are able to reach a RPM over 1000. A power of about 2000W respectively a very high torque is more complex to realise on a bike.

With this comparison we decided to work on option 1. Furthermore we ththoug that it would be safer because to get the high torque for option 2 it is necessary to have a flywheel and imagine something gets stuck in the shredder and the machines stops to turn, but the energy is still there. So maybe the chain jump or the belt break like the people in Shanghai experienced with.

@siemenc i do not think that this is necessary. With normal waste we do not have any problems to shred it. It would make the machine heavy and more difficult to stop

The pictures show the principle of the shredding unit and our first protoype with an electric motor (230V/250W) in a case out of acrylicglas and aluminium.

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#19

Great project! Would it makes sense to have some detachable weights on the wheel of the bike to turn it more into a flywheel when in shredder-mode?

#20

Hey @adelef
Thanks!
We made a completely different blade design and we are working with a high RPM and low torque. More or less it is exactly the opposite of the ‘normal’ precious pladtic shredder.

We precut the plastic in pieces that fit in our hopper. Until now we just have tested PP and i think the max. Thickness was about 2mm.

I will write a detailed post about the shredding unit this evening. With some pictures, drawings and facts…

Peace
Carl