Our friends at Blendtec were awesome enough to lend us a blender for this teardown!

$400 gets you:

• Their awesome "base" 1560W Total Blender (as if you can call anything with 1560 Watts "base")
• Instruction manual
• CD-ROM with product tour and video recipes
• Lifestyles Recipe Book, good for many blenderiffic creations

Fully digital controls, along with an LCD display. None of that "push-button" stuff found on $30 blenders.

But will it blend?

• We were so anxious to open up this puppy, we never found out. We'll take the word of thousands of satisfied customers, as well as Blendtec's hilarious videos.

A mechanical switch on the back of the unit stops any bad ideas from turning into deadly ideas.

You'll notice the absence of plastic. Other blenders use plastic shafts as a safety mechanism. If the blade gets stuck, the blade/motor connection will sever, as the plastic will either break or melt.

The Total Blender has several electronic monitors that enable it to have a full metal shaft. That's how it transfers all that power to your ice cubes.

The splined connection between the motor shaft and the blades is perfectly suited to transfer the astronomical torque of the motor to the edge of the rotor blades.

The bottom of the blender. Best place to go if you need your serial number.

Remove the two Phillips screws (deeply) recessed into the bottom housing.

Four side tabs hold the plastic bottom housing in place. Opening the blender is as easy as one, two, three, four.

The bottom housing is very ventilated -- essential for cooling the 1560W motor housed within.

There's another thin plastic cover underneath the main cover. Nothing too exciting yet.

The cover most likely directs air toward the vents in the bottom housing.

Notice all the free space. This is the type of device mostly unaffected by the trend to shrink all components as much as possible.

Now onto the fun stuff.

Connectors abound!

• We begin by pulling out the power switch -- can't be too careful nowadays, especially with the recession and all...
• Another spade connector lies underneath. We pulled that one out too.
• Insert a spudger between the EMI power line filter and the case to separate the double sided tape. The unit comes right off after a couple of spudger twists.

Onto the logic board, which may be the most important of all the internal goodies. It regulates all the aspects of operation and safety for the device.

The logic board simply sits on brackets molded into the plastic housing. No screws!

• Disconnect a couple of spade connectors from it, and slide it out a bit to reach the control panel ribbon cable connector.
• Disconnect the control panel ribbon cable from the board. This should almost free the logic board from the rest of the blender.

Two more connectors, and the logic board is free to roam about the country!