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Pedal powered smoothie maker

by chunkyhampton on March 20, 2011

Table of Contents
Pedal powered smoothie maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Intro: Pedal powered smoothie maker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 1: Parts required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 2: Tools required . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 3: Bike stand and drive shaft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 4: Attach flexible drive to roller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 5: Attach the flexible drive shaft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Step 6: Add finger guard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Step 7: Bike stand and flexible drive finished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Step 8: Sorting out the blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Step 9: Make a clamp for the blender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Step 10: Finished - now get pedalling.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Intro: Pedal powered smoothie maker

A pedal powered blender for making smoothies at festivals and events had always seemed like a great idea. It brings in a number of concepts: firstly there is the we
dont need electricity for everything idea, secondly it helps to demonstrate the concept of power in an interesting way, thirdly it helps to promote cycling and things
pedal related and lastly it helps to get people to eat more fresh fruit.
There are a number of pedal powered blender designs available:
1 An amazing book for human powered devices, which includes a pedal powered blender plan, is 'The Human Powered Home' by Tamara Dean and published by NSP.
2 A nice Instructables plan is available here, but probably loads more on instrucables....
3 A nice, commercial pedal powered blender is available from Fender Blenders, based in the US.
RE-Innovation decided to build their own. This design uses a flexible power drive to separate the blender from the bike to remove vibrations. The flexible drive can also
be used for other applications, like pedal powered drilling.
Here are construction details for building our pedal powered blender:
DISCLAIMER: These instructions are given as a guide for the competent pedal power enthusiast. The authors do not take any responsibility for any injury or
damaged tools which may occur. Please stay safe when using power. Consult a qualified person if you are unsure at any stage. You are responsible for your
own safety.

Step 1: Parts required

You will need for the stand and flexible drive:
Bike Turbo Trainer We used a stand manufactured by Beto. Search eBay for Turbo Trainer and you can pick them up used from around
30 (if lucky)
and new from around 50.
Flexible drill drive from Screwfix (code: 31843) for 14.95. - http://www.screwfix.com/prods/31843/Drill-Bits/Drill-Accessories/Flexible-Drive-Shaft-915mm. Or
use the slightly longer version (1300mm) from Wolfcraft (shown here).
40mm Jubilee clips x 2 decent quality ones
10-12mm metal tubing approx 1-2mm thick
5mm metal tubing approx 1mm thick
Heat shrink tubing x numerous pieces
Angle brackets x 2 50mm by 100mm, sometimes called a frame tie. Such as Screwfix code (24936): http://www.screwfix.com/prods/24936/Building/BuildersMetalwork/Frame-Ties-50-x-150mm-Pack-of-10
Metal mesh finger-proof sized
Various nuts and blots whatever you have available, mainly 6mm diameter
For the main machine and table clamp:
An old blender or smoothie maker we were lucky to find a unit with a damaged motor for free. If possible find a unit which has a broken motor. Check car boot
sales, freecycle, ask friends etc.
An Optics type clamp This is the screw clamp which holds Optics drinks dispensers to a shelf. These are usually available at car boot sales. Otherwise a
woodworking G-clamp could be used.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Approx 50mm x 50mm angle aluminum a piece around 20cm long, around 2mm thickness.

Image Notes
1. A Kenwood Smoothie Machine in all its chromed plastic glory...

Image Notes
1. This is the tube metal used as a connector between the stand and the
drive.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. This is the flexible drive shaft.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. This is an angle bracket. You will be bending the brackets like the other one in
this picture.

Step 2: Tools required

Drill and drill bits (various sizes)
Screw drivers
Hacksaw
Metal file
Hot air gun
Tin-snips
Dremel type cutting tool
This is a guide only - you might need to improvise some parts of the process which is one of the best things about making it yourself.
Once you have most of those parts then lets start building stuff

Step 3: Bike stand and drive shaft

The Turbo Trainer is basically the whole stand and wheel attachment, so not that much work is required here. The trainer has a large threaded rod with some small
cups which hold each side of the back wheel nut of any bike with a wheel greater than 26. Its pretty quick and easy to get a bike attached to the stand. Ensure that
the stand is well tightened and the lock nuts used.
A roller pushes some yellow plastic fans against the wheel. This provides the resistance for the training but is not needed here.
You need to remove the fans from both sides. Follow the instructions in the images to do this.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. You remove this from the stand by unscrewing this handle.

Image Notes
1. These are the yellow fans to remove
2. This is where a small screw holds the yellow fan to the roller.

Step 4: Attach flexible drive to roller

With the fan removed we want to attach the flexible drive to the roller assembly. The flexible drive shaft is connected using a small piece of metal tubing and is held in
place using two angle brackets.
The angle brackets will be bolted to the plastic roller assembly. To fit they must be cut down slightly and an additional hole drilled. The brackets must be bent slightly so
that it holds the flexible drive in the correct position in-line with the roller drive axle. This can be done by holding the bracket in a vice and tapping with a hammer.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. Start by cutting down the angle brackets so that they fit within the plastic rim
of the roller assembly (check out the other image)

Image Notes
1. Bend the angle bracket to this approximate shape. You are making it so the
top of the bracket will be the closer to the flexible shaft so that you can use a
jubilee clip to hold it all together

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. Drill through the plastic. Use 20mm long 6mm bolts and locknuts to hold the
two brackets onto the roller assembly. Locknuts are required as there will be
quite a bit of vibration on this device.
2. The distance between these two will fit the flexible drive shaft as shown in the
next stage.

Step 5: Attach the flexible drive shaft

The flexible drive is held in place with two jubilee clips.
The roller axle is connected to the flexible drive shaft using a small piece of tubing as a coupler. The shaft sizes are not equal so a number of layers of heat shrink are
used to build up the diameter.
Build up layers of heat shrink. Ensure you cut off any excess. Do this on both the roller assembly and the flexible drive.
The coupling tube must be attached to both the axles. To do this, drill a small hole through the tube and the shaft. We used a 2mm hole. A short piece of 2mm galvanised
wire pushed through the hole and bent on each end. A split pin or bolt could also be used. On the final version an additional piece of large diameter heat-shrink was used
to hold the galvanised wire.

Image Notes
1. Cut a piece of tube - ensure its quite thick walled tube. It needs to be around
50mm long and a diameter of 10mm or more.

Image Notes
1. This is one end of the flexible drive
2. This is the coupling tube
3. You can just see the heatshrink used to increase the size of the shafts.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. Add layers of heatshrink. Shrink it down. Add another layer. Do this until the
tube just fits over.

Image Notes
1. End up with it looking like this.

Image Notes
1. Chop off the excess and repeat on the other shaft - the one connected to the
roller.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. This is what you will end up with. You need to drill a small hole through the
tube and the shaft. I used a 2.5mm drill bit. Be very careful to hold it well as the
shaft can turn around and snap the drill bit.
2. A piece of steel wire is used to hold the coupler so they both spin around. A
better solution might be a 3mm bolt with a locknut.

Step 6: Add finger guard

A guard made from metal mesh was added to keep interested fingers away from the moving parts. This was made from a piece of square section mesh which was cut to
size using some tin-snips. This is shown here, where you can also see the two jubilee clips which hold the outer casing of the flexible drive.
The mesh is cut to size and then wrapped around the metal brackets. Small holes (3mm) were drilled and tapped (given a thread) with a 4mm tap in the angle
brackets. This means a machine screw can be used to hold the safety mesh onto the angle brackets.

Image Notes
1. NOT SHOWN - You will need to hold the mesh finger guard in place somehow.
I drilled and tapped a hole and used 2 short machine screws. You could also drill a
small hole and use a self-tapping screw.

Image Notes
1. This is a piece of metal mesh cut out with tin-snips. Fold it around the angle
brackets.
2. Here you can see the flexible drive held in place with 2 x 40mm jubilee
clips.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Step 7: Bike stand and flexible drive finished

You now have a pedal powered flexible drive. This drive can now be used to pedal power drill the holes for the next section.
This could be used as the basis of many projects including pedal powered drills, generators, woodworking tools etc.

Step 8: Sorting out the blender

The next step is to convert the blender, so that the flexible drive can be easily attached to spin the blender blades.
We found a blender which the motor had burned out, hence it seemed OK to remove and get it working again on pedal power. We used a Kenwood Smoothie Machine,
but I am sure that most blenders have similar insides.
SAFETY: Unplug the smoothie maker before taking it apart.
Firstly take off the blender jug and keep safe.
Unscrew the plastic base. This gives access to the motor and the blender shaft. Make sure you keep all the nuts, bolts and screws, as they might be required later.
You can remove the cable and any of the electrical components as they will not be required.
The connector from the blender base to the blender jug was a plastic saw-toothed connector. This was held with a nut, but on a reverse thread. Turn this the opposite
way to the usual to undo (clockwise to un-tighten, rather than the usual anti-clockwise). It should undo quite easily. This will allow the motor spindle to drop out.
Undo the two screws holding the motor to the plastic base.
There are large, heavy motor windings around the motor spindle. These can be removed. The motor is held at the top and the bottom with two bearings. There may also
a fan at the base. This can be removed by undoing the nut holding to the spindle.
Undo the two nuts on each side of the motor assembly.
The next things to remove are the motor brushes. These are two graphite connectors which provide power to the windings on the motor spindle. These are not needed,
so just undo any holding screws and remove.
Once the motor windings have been removed there is nothing to hold the top and bottom sections of the motor apart. We used some metal tubing (4mm brass tubing) to
replace the motor windings.
Measure the distance and cut two identical pieces of tubing. Fit over the two long bolts (as shown) to replace the windings.
Note: If weight is not an issue, then you can just use the motor windings again, rather than cut additional tubing.
Re-build the motor assembly, ensuring that the motor spindle turns freely on its bearings.
The concept is to tighten the flexible drive chuck around the protruding motor spindle. The flexible drive chuck opens to 8mm maximum, just larger than the smoothie
machine spindle. (Afraid there is not a good image of this).
Note: If the spindle is larger than the chuck, then you could use a metal lathe to machine off the 2mm, but this is not practical for most people. A metal file could also be
used to flatten off three sides to create a triangle. Check the flexible drive first the spindle might fit with no adjustment.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. Undo the screws in the base of the unit. This smoothie machine had 4 x screw
hidden behind the rubber feet.
2. The winding have been removed in this photo. They are a red coil of wire
which make up the motor. They are not needed in this situation
3. Rip out all electrical systems - there will basically just be a switch or two.
4. There is a plastic or rubber connector from the motor to the jug. Its not shown
here as its on the other side. This can be removed but has a reverse thread so
turn it the opposite direction to normal.

Image Notes
1. Remove the motor brushes. They are not needed and will add a little bit of
friction

Image Notes
1. This will be the shaft that your flexible drive will connect to.
2. This is the shaft which fits the coupler to the blades in the jug.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. If you do not put something here to replace the motor windings then there will
be nothing to hold the motor apart and it will not spin freely. I used some brass
tubing to make some spacers. You could also replace the motor windings (but
they are heavy)
2. This is the brass tubing. It is larger enough to fit over the machine screws.

Image Notes
1. Measure this distance or measure the thickness of the motor windings. You
will need to fill this gap with something so the motor spins freely.

Step 9: Make a clamp for the blender

Now that the main parts are built then last thing to do is to make some kind of clamp to hold it to a table. There are loads of ways to do this, we have built machines which
are permanently bolted on table tops and ones which clamp to a table. How you do it is up to you, but here are the table clamp plans for your information.
We used a piece of 50x50mm angle aluminium to hold an old smoothie machine. The whole unit is clamped to a table top using a clamp from an old optics type drinks
clamp. This makes the unit portable so it can be rigged up anywhere.
The photo here shows that a piece of aluminium angle has been cut so that it fits around the motor.
The motor is bolted to the aluminium bracket and the plastic housing of the smoothie machine. The plastic housing must be cut down using a Dremel type cutting tool,
so that the angle aluminium extends outside of the housing, as shown above.
Bolt using 4mm bolts and use lock-nuts so that it does not come undone with vibration.
On the other end of the aluminium bracket a clamp is bolted. Drill two holes through the aluminium angle and the clamp. Use short bolts and locknuts to bolt together, as
shown here.

Image Notes
1. Bolt through here to hold it to the angle aluminium.
2. You will need to cut out the metal from this part. See the other images.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

Image Notes
1. A clamp from an optics type drinks stand. The type that holds spirits upside
down in a bar.

Image Notes
1. This is a plan for cutting out the angle aluminium.

Image Notes
1. Close up of the angle aluminium used for the clamp.

Step 10: Finished - now get pedalling....

Now you have finished. Clamp the unit to a table. Tighten the flexible drive to the blender motor spindle. Add fruit and get pedaling.
Check out more designs and ideas relating to pedal power and renewable energy on my website: www.re-innovation.co.uk
You can download these plans from there as a pdf.
Smoothie recipe notes:
Per person 1 cup of rough chopped fruit
cup of fruit juice
splash of water
Good fruits:
Banana, melon, strawberries, kiwi
Not so good fruits:
Oranges, apple with peel, red grapes

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

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http://www.instructables.com/id/Pedal-powered-smoothie-maker/

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