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Description
I can hear the mixture of voices in the room on this one. One half, the people liking my newest stuff, I hear gitty excitement. My other watchers I can hear an annoyed groan.. probably thinking how I could have used the effort taken to do this to do another cut-away of one of the other Irken Armada Ships. To those people I say sorry, I almost didn't draw this because I knew it'd only appeal to a few select people if any. But then I thought about what so many of you keep telling me, "draw what YOU wanna draw only." So I went ahead and did this..

Honestly, I think since I was a little kid I always wondered how this thing operated..ever since I caught that brief 2 second glimpse of the moving parts and mechanics behind the crusher during the movie. However not till the advent of youtube these days was I able to go back and LOOK at those mechanics closer and see what was going on. I'm happy to say, whoever designed the crusher for the movie did it with practicality in mind and didn't just draw a bunch of moving gears that look cool. I tip my non-existent hat to you fine sir..

Essentially, and quite uniquely, the compactor works on clock-work mechanics, with gears and levers. I'm not sure weather that's ingenious or stupid.. it totally rules out having any hydraulics of any kind involved, depending more on sheer weight and force mostly. One thing I would like to point out, it was something I used to think as a kid so I figure many others would to. The large plume of ozone killing exhaust smoke coming out of the compactor IS'NT being expelled from the piston tube at the top of the device. But rather from a small smoke-stack in the power-plant area behind it. Since the compactor is almost always seen from the front however, it looks like it's coming from the top.

The biggest asset to doing this study here, like I mentioned before, was a short 2-3 second view of the background mechanics seen here: [link] Essentially the large crushing block, which has a connecting rod extending out the top, is repeatedly lifted by a > shaped lever system. The movement is controlled by a spinning windmill-shaped toothed cylinder which lifts and drops the block at regular intervals (4 compactions per revolution). This would mean that the actual crushing would have to rely entirely on the simple weight of the crushing block and the force of it being dropped.

**MOVIE SPOILER**
This is all well and good, but then I realized an inconsistency (one of many in the movie.. like the fact that the height of the compactor constantly changes as well as the layout of the conveyer belt). With this mechanic, as soon as the crushing block reached the top of it's lifting cycle and started down.. it would be going at free-fall speed with no mechanical intervention. This completely contradicts the end climax of the movie where the Toaster, by jamming the gears, causes the crushing block to staggeringly slow and stop just inches from crushing the Master's hand. [link]

This was probably just an oversight by the artists, also not counting on obsessives like me to think about it so hard. SO with my brain-meats I managed to introduce a hidden mechanical component which fixes this inconsistency as well as make the device much more realistic in it's working.. IMO.

This was done, as seen above, by creating a hollow area inside the crushing block, along with side-slits to allow movement. I introduced a gear-driven piston system mimicking the exact same mechanics as a piston in a combustion engine. This internal arm would supply downward pull when compacting rather then just using momentum which seems much more realistic. Cosmetically it also gives the gears along the sides of the device a purpose other then driving the conveyor belts.

For those in deep need of education who don't understand how a piston works.. take a look at this animation: [link]

So bringing it back to the issue of the shut down of the compactor climax. Those gears, with this system, not only drive the conveyer belts but the secondary drive of the whole compactor. I should point out that the primary and secondary drive mechanisms (the gear and lever system) are dependent on each-other and they're timed like clockwork (much like a real engine) so if one fails the other will too.

This description is getting long so I'll try and wrap this up. By focusing on these fine details I failed to leave room to explain the most important question. How does a device that flattens things into pancakes turn them into cubes? Well by design I see no room for any kind of secondary crushing device in the under parts of the compactor. So sadly, realistic or not, the only idea I have to go on is that the base of the compactor has a grate system.. similar to a tomato deicer. [link] The sheer force of the crushing motion not only flattens the vehicle but forces it through cubed channels at the bottom, reducing it into a collection of crushed metal cubes. There must be a channeling system that allows one cube out at a time as that's what's seen during the movie..with er.... 6.6; .. Pinky's remains.

Lastly are the parts that look like eyes on the compactor. Originally in my first idea for this, they were to be joint locations for an internal hydraulic system. But now I think they serve a better function. They're air-channels that allow the flow of air in and out of the top of the crushing block cylinder.. this prevents a vacuum from forming inside the cylinder as the block raises and lowers inside. This is the ONLY thing I can suggest perhaps leads to the 'hissst'ing of steam sound that's heard while the device is operational. It could be bursts of air caused by a controlled release valve in these channels. Perhaps during the power stroke (crushing stroke) the pressurized trap air at the top of the cyclinder is used to assist in creating pounds of pressure in the crushing action. Then when raising back up the air is released.

Anyway, that's all.. I'm done rambling. I hope you enjoy this.

Ernie's Disposal, compactor (c) TBLT

Description
I can hear the mixture of voices in the room on this one. One half, the people liking my newest stuff, I hear gitty excitement. My other watchers I can hear an annoyed groan.. probably thinking how I could have used the effort taken to do this to do another cut-away of one of the other Irken Armada Ships. To those people I say sorry, I almost didn't draw this because I knew it'd only appeal to a few select people if any. But then I thought about what so many of you keep telling me, "draw what YOU wanna draw only." So I went ahead and did this..

Honestly, I think since I was a little kid I always wondered how this thing operated..ever since I caught that brief 2 second glimpse of the moving parts and mechanics behind the crusher during the movie. However not till the advent of youtube these days was I able to go back and LOOK at those mechanics closer and see what was going on. I'm happy to say, whoever designed the crusher for the movie did it with practicality in mind and didn't just draw a bunch of moving gears that look cool. I tip my non-existent hat to you fine sir..

Essentially, and quite uniquely, the compactor works on clock-work mechanics, with gears and levers. I'm not sure weather that's ingenious or stupid.. it totally rules out having any hydraulics of any kind involved, depending more on sheer weight and force mostly. One thing I would like to point out, it was something I used to think as a kid so I figure many others would to. The large plume of ozone killing exhaust smoke coming out of the compactor IS'NT being expelled from the piston tube at the top of the device. But rather from a small smoke-stack in the power-plant area behind it. Since the compactor is almost always seen from the front however, it looks like it's coming from the top.

The biggest asset to doing this study here, like I mentioned before, was a short 2-3 second view of the background mechanics seen here: [link] Essentially the large crushing block, which has a connecting rod extending out the top, is repeatedly lifted by a > shaped lever system. The movement is controlled by a spinning windmill-shaped toothed cylinder which lifts and drops the block at regular intervals (4 compactions per revolution). This would mean that the actual crushing would have to rely entirely on the simple weight of the crushing block and the force of it being dropped.

**MOVIE SPOILER**
This is all well and good, but then I realized an inconsistency (one of many in the movie.. like the fact that the height of the compactor constantly changes as well as the layout of the conveyer belt). With this mechanic, as soon as the crushing block reached the top of it's lifting cycle and started down.. it would be going at free-fall speed with no mechanical intervention. This completely contradicts the end climax of the movie where the Toaster, by jamming the gears, causes the crushing block to staggeringly slow and stop just inches from crushing the Master's hand. [link]

This was probably just an oversight by the artists, also not counting on obsessives like me to think about it so hard. SO with my brain-meats I managed to introduce a hidden mechanical component which fixes this inconsistency as well as make the device much more realistic in it's working.. IMO.

This was done, as seen above, by creating a hollow area inside the crushing block, along with side-slits to allow movement. I introduced a gear-driven piston system mimicking the exact same mechanics as a piston in a combustion engine. This internal arm would supply downward pull when compacting rather then just using momentum which seems much more realistic. Cosmetically it also gives the gears along the sides of the device a purpose other then driving the conveyor belts.

For those in deep need of education who don't understand how a piston works.. take a look at this animation: [link]

So bringing it back to the issue of the shut down of the compactor climax. Those gears, with this system, not only drive the conveyer belts but the secondary drive of the whole compactor. I should point out that the primary and secondary drive mechanisms (the gear and lever system) are dependent on each-other and they're timed like clockwork (much like a real engine) so if one fails the other will too.

This description is getting long so I'll try and wrap this up. By focusing on these fine details I failed to leave room to explain the most important question. How does a device that flattens things into pancakes turn them into cubes? Well by design I see no room for any kind of secondary crushing device in the under parts of the compactor. So sadly, realistic or not, the only idea I have to go on is that the base of the compactor has a grate system.. similar to a tomato deicer. [link] The sheer force of the crushing motion not only flattens the vehicle but forces it through cubed channels at the bottom, reducing it into a collection of crushed metal cubes. There must be a channeling system that allows one cube out at a time as that's what's seen during the movie..with er.... 6.6; .. Pinky's remains.

Lastly are the parts that look like eyes on the compactor. Originally in my first idea for this, they were to be joint locations for an internal hydraulic system. But now I think they serve a better function. They're air-channels that allow the flow of air in and out of the top of the crushing block cylinder.. this prevents a vacuum from forming inside the cylinder as the block raises and lowers inside. This is the ONLY thing I can suggest perhaps leads to the 'hissst'ing of steam sound that's heard while the device is operational. It could be bursts of air caused by a controlled release valve in these channels. Perhaps during the power stroke (crushing stroke) the pressurized trap air at the top of the cyclinder is used to assist in creating pounds of pressure in the crushing action. Then when raising back up the air is released.

Anyway, that's all.. I'm done rambling. I hope you enjoy this.

Ernie's Disposal, compactor (c) TBLT