pretty much this, but for plastic bottles to punch holes in them so that they could be crushed for a school project where we are making a machine to sort, crush, and dispose of plastic bottles and soda cans, do VEX pistons have enough force to do that?
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this does not answer my question
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The pneumatic cylinder from VEX is pretty small, and will generate about 12 lbs of force at 100 psi. If you put a sharp end on the cylinder rod, and extend the cylinder quickly, you might punch through a plastic bottle. The piston itself, if you could remove it from the pneumatic cylinder, is just a small cylindrical shape with a seal around it, and probably wouldn’t do anything buy lay on the bench after you disassemble the pneumatic cylinder.
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ok, noted, and thank you
also, i plan on useing pistons to crush the cans (attached to a plate of course) if one piston doesn’t work, would the Kerbal space program maxim “moar boostars” apply here?
Why not just get an air cylinder of appropriate size and stroke?
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i dont have those available to me at the moment
Not likely, the VEX cylinder is pretty small and has only a 2" stroke.
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If you were dead set on using vex parts you can link up multiple cylinders and use mechanical advantage to gain crushing power
exactly what i was thinking
well, if you had a red hot spike, it would sink through plastic bottles easy…
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we talking back to back matches kinda hot 
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You could use one of my drive motors to heat it up
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Ahhhhh yes big metal piston spike