10 ms·
Trash Train: I put my trash cans on rails so they move automatically [video]
- moloch-hai 4y agoNow, get trash collectors to put bins back on the cars. Maybe it is easier where he is. Going out to do that yourself is a pretty small chore.
- yetihehe 4y agoPutting empty bins back on cars is much easier than hauling them full from behind house, so that system is a win already. How to convince trash collectors - maybe put a small sign ("Put back bins on platforms for some fun") and when platforms detect that all bins are put back and empty - play some fanfares and make train go back? A little fun for collectors never hurts.
- bmitc 4y agoThe speed at which the trash collectors I have seen work means that they would likely not care a bit about putting the cans back in the plates, much less be entertained watching a train take them away.
- TylerE 4y agoYou still have collectors? In my, not especially large town, we’ve had the robot hydraulic arm things for almost a decade. I can remember 20 years ago they not only coll cred by hand but for not that much extra per month they’d even walk back and pull them down.
- asdff 4y agoFully automating the process in some way would at least spare you from your neighbors loading up the recycling bin you've left by the road with dog waste bags.
- dylan604 4y ago>Putting empty bins back on cars is much easier Not according to the collection employees that pick up in my neighborhood. Not once have the bins ever been put back in any manner other than "just throw the damn thing where ever".
- brnt 4y agoIndeed. Here I'm lucky if the bin is no further than my next door neighbour.
- yetihehe 4y agoI meant ".. easier for owner than hauling full bins from backyard". It depends on locality, in my town it's not a problem, collectors even put them back inside fence for some older people. If you can find some incentive for collectors for putting bins back on platforms, maybe they would put them back.
- kleiba 4y agoThe way I understand it, this system does not take the bins all the way to the curb where they get picked up. It just takes the bins close to the curb, you still have to move them off the moving platforms manually, and on again after they have been emptied. Usually, the different recycling bins do not get emptied on the same day, so it would not make sense to put all of them out for pickup. The purpose of this system (I think) is just to make it easier to get the bins from beside the house (where they're usually stored) to the front of the house (from where they can be put out on the curb more easily).
- notwokeno 4y agoWhere I live they use large automatic arm that just puts the bin back down where it was before.
- moloch-hai 4y agoThat wouldn't reach the end of his track. Probably he rolls out the bins they mean to collect that day, and puts them back himself.
- solosito 4y agoThis is super nice. Awesome job
- chronicsonic 4y agoThis is what happens when you ask an engineer to put the bins out.
- dylan604 4y agoA software person would have done the next couple of pickups by hand while working on the automation, but then never have to do it again once it has been entered as a cron task. The hardware is someone else's problem, like this guy
- Someone1234 4y ago6 bins is a lot. He does give an explanation in the video: They only get trash pickup monthly, and they have several recycling bins. He switched to Rack and Pinion to overcome toque/wear/contact issues which seems like it should be reliable. I like his mechanical end-stops, but if he is serious about wanting a commercial version, I wonder if there's a way to count "steps" as the gear moves over the rack (e.g. hall effect gear tooth sensor[0]), and just slow/stop based on a predefined end-point? The same sensor would also likely function as a fault detector (e.g. stop engine burnout if the train gets stuck), and you won't have plants/debris potentially setting off the mechanical end-stops (plus reducing parts and points of failure). [0] https://sensorso.com/rack-gear-count.html?filter=inventory:2:All%20Category%20Parts https://sensorso.com/rack-gear-count.html?filter=inventory:2...
- mediaman 4y agoYou can use an encoder on the motor and count the rotations to slow down. Limit switches can be used to maintain calibration, in case the encoder misses some pulses over time.
- notatoad 4y agoi know these youtube maker projects aren't really meant to be practical, but the fact that his trash pickup is only monthly just makes this absolutely hilarious to me. all this work to avoid putting the bins out once a month
- michaelbuckbee 4y agoEven more than that - he seemingly still needs to take each bin off the train and put it on the curb and then put it back.
- gorgoiler 4y agoWith the missed opportunity cost being so high, I too would want to ensure my bins went out automatically no matter what. Hooking the control unit up to the city’s trash schedule would be the next logical step.
- 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fexecve 4y agoI don't really like Ruby, but sounds cool.
- quickthrower2 4y agoThis is a different framework
- throwawaaarrgh 4y agowhy didn't he just use a cable to pull it? no need for gears, no traction issues, the motor etc can stay stationary. trains have their own power because you can't stretch a cable across the country, but this is so tiny it'd be trivial.
- upwardbound 4y agoYeah, early precursors to railroads (cable railways used for mines) did just this :-D , and there were even passenger railways that used cable haulage as the form of motive power! Here's a really cool example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_Blackwall_Railway#Cable_haulage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_and_Blackwall_Railway#C...
- adrianmonk 4y agoAnd there still are in San Francisco. And they can go around corners: http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/archive/Anat/Anat.html http://www.cablecarmuseum.org/archive/Anat/Anat.html
- perbu 4y agoThe rails don't go in a straight line.
- birdyrooster 4y agoNeither do cable cars?
- function_seven 4y agoLook at all the complexity needed to get a cable car to follow curves. Top comment was implying that using a cable would eliminate the issues with gears or traction. That’s not true.
- TylerE 4y agoNot only the complexity… the power. The San Francisco system uses 95% of its power just overcoming cable friction.
- nielsbot 4y agoEasy to criticize, I know. But what about wheeled carts with wheels suitable for uneven terrain and a center rail to guide them?
- dylan604 4y agowouldn't make for an interesting youtube video now would it? i mean, if you thought of it...eh?
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoCool! I'm a two-bin guy and trash monthly. But I do recycling separately (take it to center)
- tvb12 4y agoWhere can you find supplies for these kinds of projects? Each 6ft. section of rack would cost $81 plus shipping from McMaster-Carr.Never mind the other components, that would add up quickly. I was trying to find some spur gears for a project, but wow those are expensive. I reworked it to use pulleys, but those weren't as cheap as I'd hoped, either.
- _fs 4y agoI don't believe these kind of projects are designed to be economical :). He is building this to drive traffic to his youtube channel, which in turns, pays for the next outlandish project.
- nine_k 4y agoThey can be made economical if you have a lot of salvaged parts for cheap / free. (As a boy, I could not have built much of the stuff I've built from 74xx ICs if I had to buy all of them new; instead, I had a bunch of PCBs from a decommissioned computer.)
- aliqot 4y agoThe motor for the little trolley in the video is a salvaged wiper motor.
- adrianmonk 4y agoCan't answer the supply question, but it seems to me his problem could have been solved by drilling a line of holes into the sheet metal rail. Then have a sprocket stick into those holes. It works for film in movie projectors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_perforations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_perforations), so why not for a trash train? It uses fewer parts, at least. But maybe cutting a bunch of holes in already-installed rail is more work than welding rack onto it.
- sacrosancty 4y ago[dead]
- meken 4y agoWhen I take out the trash, I put on a pair of rollerblades and skate it over (I live in an apartment complex and it’s across a parking lot) It seriously feels like a real life cheat code when I’m doing this
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ufmace 4y agoReminds me of an apartment complex I used to live at that had a really long walk from where my place was to the dumpster. I'd put anything that was significantly awkward to carry in my car for the trip. I knew a few people who moved all their trash there in their car, but I enjoy walking and would prefer not to risk getting smelly food waste spilled in my car.
- subpixel 4y agoI have no trash pickup where I live so I bought a used, homemade utility trailer to haul stuff to the dump. A big plus is that I can fill multiple trash cans (I like the old aluminum ones best, as they are so light) and only need to haul once or twice a month. However, having a utility trailer has also come in handy in many other ways - from hauling small boats, to moving substantial amounts of dirt, to transporting many bushels of apples that I scrounge from miles around. I'd love an electric F-150 but for the foreseeable future I'm happy being the guy with a trailer as long as, and wider than, the Subaru hauling it.
- TheSpiceIsLife 4y agoI'm in Australia, we call them utes. I've had a couple utes, but I'm much happier with my long wheelbase VW T5 Transporter (auto, turbo diesel) and a small trailer with removable hurdles and gate.
- gigel82 4y agoThat's a fun little project but it'll never work in the real world. After the collectors empty the bins, they never set them down gently in the original spot (almost always it ends up a few feet away, sometimes knocked over on a side). Maybe it's different where the author lives.
- rkagerer 4y agoHas anyone hacked a "smart" garbage can boot that can self-right the bin and find its way around like an autonomous luggage? (Bonus points if it can somehow unlock the bin for you and detect and ward off bears and other animals).
- sowbug 4y agoMy neighborhood has wheeled cans that you tip back and push toward the curb. I have been thinking about converting mine into a self-balancing trash can. Even if it had to move very slowly to avoid falling over, that's OK; it could take hours if it needed to.
- coder543 4y agoGetting into the self-balancing state with a standard wheeled trashcan would require a large initial torque, more than enough to tip over the trashcan. There's no "moving slowly" when that's involved... either the control algorithm and motor works correctly, or there's trash all over the driveway. If you built a completely custom trash can with the wheels in the center and a very small amount of ground clearance when balanced, you could drastically reduce the initial torque required, but at that point, concerns about needing to move slowly would probably be a lot less anyways since this is being fully engineered at that point, not just an attempt at a quick hack.
- r2_pilot 4y agoAlternatively, some of these wheeled cans have a bar in the front for the hydraulic arms, and you may could have a robot that aligns to that bar(if it exists--mine does) and then lifts it up via that, which seems to use much less force in my experiments[yes, I've been playing around with automated trashcan systems too lol].
- twobitshifter 4y agoI’d have liked to see him succeed with the steel on steel option. I think he just needed multiple drive wheels to distribute the normal force more, and a bin holder over the locomotive. The route seemed rather flat. He might have also been handicapped by not having it entirely on rail, trains have low rolling resistance because of steel on steel but in some spots, he had worse of both worlds, driving on steel and rolling on pavement.
- Animats 4y agoIf TechShop were still alive, I'd be tempted to build that. I have to move cans about 150 feet. I miss doing building projects, but don't do enough to have a real shop. The rack and pinion thing was overkill. The steel wheel was never going to have enough traction, but big rubber wheels probably would have. The vertical guide rail, though, is nicely unobtrusive. All-wheel drive is an option. Put rubber tires under each trash can, with a worm gear and a flexible drive shaft to the next car. Like a Shay narrow-gauge logging locomotive. Maybe integrate the power car with one of the cargo cars and eliminate the "locomotive". The big problem here would be compatibility with the local Recology robotic garbage trucks.[1] The cans have to be spaced about 2 feet apart so the big gripper can grab them. (Otherwise, the driver has to get out of the truck, and they hate that.) The robot isn't that good at positioning the cans back exactly where it found them, although it does try. So getting them back on the train would be tough. [1] https://youtu.be/AK3uPcWCNLo?t=150 https://youtu.be/AK3uPcWCNLo?t=150
- skowalak 4y ago> and we added some thyme So now the train runs on... thyme? That's an xkcd reference if I have ever seen one.
- rkagerer 4y agoI'm eyeballing a property on a slight slope and thought about cutting a trench alongside the driveway to act as a guide in which to lower a garbage trolley on a cable. One concern is maintenance and debris getting in the track. Anyone seen/done anything like that?
- nathan_f77 4y agoThis is really cool! Like something out of Wallace and Gromit. I love projects like this. I've been wanting to add a remote controlled motor to our trash and recycling bins so that I can drive them up our driveway (which is up a steep hill.) I think this would be a very expensive project though, the motor and batteries must cost quite a lot.
- rurtrack 4y agoI have a background building 10x10 feet fabric cutting robots. This was a trip to the past I really enjoyed. I took many of the same steps 20 years ago, robotics is my little forgotten passion. It's only lacking a little horn so the user can make a small train sound!
- aliqot 4y ago> It's only lacking a little horn so the user can make a small train sound! One of our Japanese or German readers better have a bespoke native word that describes this type of feature/purpose combo or I'm going to be disappointed.
- schroeding 4y agoYeah, it needs a "Makrofon" (very loud, high pressure signal horn) which it then can use as a "Achtungssignal" (signal demanding the attention of nearby people) to announce its departure! :D With the power of compound words, you can combine it to "Achtungssignalmakrofon" (a Makrofon which is used to give Achtungssignale), add the information that it's small, "Achtungssignalminiaturmakrofon" (a small Achtungssignalmakrofon)! :P You could even add the trash train information: "Miniaturmüllzugachtungssignalminiaturmakrofon". (Small but loud high-pressure horn signal demanding the attention of nearby people on a small trash train)
- rurtrack 4y agoWorst startup name ever
- daveslash 4y agoThis is a very cool project. But it's so early in the morning for me that I read the title and took it to mean someone was putting their trash bins on the railroad tracks and was horrified. Sorry... brain isn't all the way turned on yet this morning.
- rendall 4y agoDespite some of the assertions in this page, no, he does not use this daily. He uses it once per month. No, this is not automated. He has no intention of automating it. Yes, he must manually remove the bins from the train to move them out to the curb. I did like the track idea, but I cannot help but feel that anything more than a manual push is over-engineered for this use-case. As a creative project, it was neat, though.