I picked up a broken blender from a neighbor, hoping to fix it and use it for my own projects.

The blender is powered by a 1500 W universal motor, whose speed is controlled by a TRIAC. A safety switch prevents the motor from running, even if it receives power from the mainboard, unless a blender bowl is put on with its lid in place. It also shorts out the motor when the bowl is removed, possibly as a safety feature to brake the motor if the bowl is suddenly removed rather than let it coast to a stop. A gearbox in the base provides a reduced-speed drive for a larger blender (the blades are larger, so they have greater tangential speed for a given rotational speed), and another gearbox is built into the food processor bowl to further reduce speed.

Disassembly was pretty easy with the exception of one security torx screw which I had to drill out.

I plan to use the TRIAC, which is rated for 20A (assuming you can cool it fast enough), to make a phase-fired controller.