Garbage Can and Lifting Lever for Play-Act Garbage Truck

We received a Play-Act garbage truck for our toddler grandson. It included no garbage cans for the side-lift, so I remixed the one from kgyrtkirk, adding and removing several pieces.

I could not get the original hinges to print correctly, so I modified the hinge, removed the hinge axle, and cleaned up the holes with a drill bit. I used a piece of 1.75 mm filament as a hinge axle, but a 2 mm screw should also work. I melted the ends of the filament with a soldering iron to retain the axle.

The width of the can is nearly fixed because of the spacing of the lift-arms on the truck, but the depth of the can can be varied (see files for the "large" can) and the height of the can above the "lips" could be varied as well, up to a limit.

The ramps up to the lips/holders are useful (especially for a toddler) to guide the can onto the lift arms whether the truck is on a hard floor or on a soft carpet in which case the truck and its arms can sink below the lips on the can.

The "friction pads" are very thin (We used exactly two layers with a 0.15 mm layer height) and were glued onto the "lips" which are the holders which contact the lift arms on the truck. The pads are important to keep the can from either falling off the lift arms and ending up inside the truck or flying off over the truck. One could instead try to decrease the distance between the "lips" so that they are spaced just enough to fit over the lift arms with just less than a press-fit, but I did not try that.

The lever slides onto the fluted knob which is intended to operate the side-lift to lift the can. Our toddler's fingers aren't strong enough to operate the lift via the original knob and the lever provides leverage (duh) to make it easier. Install with the lever arm straight up in order to also allow the front can lift to operate. The lever also prevents the side-lift from 'going too far' by hitting a stop when the lever is "down"; about 180 degrees from its original position. The lever fits tightly, but can be removed.

roundedcube.scad and syms.scad were copied from their respective authors.

Print Settings

Printer Brand:

Creality

Printer:

**Rafts:**

Doesn't Matter

Supports:

**Infill:**

15%

Notes:

We made the can, lid, and lever from PLA and the friction pads from TPU.

The garbage can itself can be printed as shown, but short supports will be needed outside to support the "lips" and inside the can (essentially filling the can) to support the bottom of the can. We flipped the can 180 degrees from its depicted orientation so long supports were needed for the "lips", but none for the inside of the can, as it then rests on its bottom. We used tree supports, only from the base plate.

Post-Printing

Recommended: print the "friction pads" and glue them (we used super glue) to the top of the lower "lip" or holder and to the under-side of the upper "lip" or holder.

Drill out holes for hinge axle and insert either a 2 mm screw or 1.75 mm filament.

How I Designed This

We used openscad for all parts, starting with the openscad file from kgyrtkirk for the can itself. The resulting .scad file for the can itself is a fairly ugly hack and there are no guarantees of generality, but minor changes seem to work fine. We tried to comment-out all code removals (disabling parts) and also comment all changes and additions.

Category: Mechanical Toys