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The Champion Juicer2007-09-05The Champion juicer is a good juicer. However, there are a few aspects about this juicer that should be noted. Separating liquids from solids Separating liquids from solids is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re trying to juice a fruit with seeds, the champion juicer will separate out the seeds from the juice. Similarly, if you’re juicing something fibrous like carrots the champion juicer will separate out the fiber from the juice and sometimes this is not wanted. Sometimes the fiber is wanted to give the juice a more whole foods effect. Although in this case the fiber can be added back into the juice after the separation. Just grinding stuff up This is where the Champion juicer excels. Some types of food don’t really have a juice part to them, like bananas. One does not juice a banana, it just makes a paste or puree. The Champion juicer has an alternate detail part that can replace the filter plate that really makes this juicer the best for making a paste. Sure other blender type machines can make a paste, but not in a continuous manner. A blender would eventually fill up and would have to be emptied before more puree could be made. Also, in some cases a blender will only mix the bottom contents of the blender and not the contents at the top of the blender. This happens when the puree or food paste gets too thick. When this happens the contents of the blender must be hand stirred. Whereas, with the Champion juicer, as long as there is food to be juiced/pureed and containers to catch it all as it exits the juicer, the juicing process will never have to be stopped. Clean up I would say the clean up on a champion juicer, if done right, is usually worse than a conventional blender. A part that can be hard to clean is the filter plate, especially if you let it sit over night before you clean it. It needs to be cleaned immediately after each use. The little holes in the filter plate tend to plug up and these little holes need to be kept open for the efficient extraction of juice from the food. The little holes plug up much faster if the filter plate is not cleaned immediately. It is also important to clean the steel shaft that the grinder slides onto. If this shaft is not cleaned well, it will not allow the grinder to set flush against the bearing. Being seated flush against the bearing helps increase the life of the machine. What I wish Champion would do to improve its juicer On our first Champion juicer, the main bearing failed. The bearing did not fail right away, it took a while. But I felt it should have lasted longer. So, being the mechanical engineer that I am, I analyzed the failure. There were two things that made the analysis easy. One, the juice was getting into the bearing. That could be seen visually during the clean up. Also, as time progressed on, some pulp was seen between the grinder and the bearing. Two, as time progressed on, there were signs of wear on the other end of the grinder, where it ejected the ground up food. The ejection end of the grinder is made of plastic and it started to rub on the plastic housing that surrounds it. Both of these observations pointed to the same conclusion. The grinder was moving away from the main bearing, during the grinding process. This allowed or facilitated the juice getting into the bearing. So, what was the root cause or causes of the grinder moving away from the main bearing? In my opinion, the primary cause was that my family was not cleaning the steel shaft, and/or the hole inside the grinder, adequately. Thus, when the grinder was slipped onto the shaft, during assembly, the residual food glace or dried juice coating, would form a near air tight seal around the shaft and air would be compressed inside the grinder (between the grinder and the shaft), preventing the grinder from seating up flushly with the bearing. In my opinion, the grinder part would tend to push itself away from the bearing after it was put on the shaft. It is also possible that because of the slight warming of the grinder part and the shaft during the juicing process, the air would expand and cause the grinder to further push away from the bearing. So, what is the Champion juicer company to do (since we can’t clean the shaft or inside the grinder really good all the time)? I would do a feasibility study on a user friendly bolt to fasten the grinder to the end of the shaft and add a cheap replaceable flexible plastic gasket/seal between the grinder and the bearing. Conclusion By now, you may think I am down on Champion juicers. I am not, they have a definite place in the juicing world. As soon as my second one breaks down I am going to buy another one. It is the only machine with which my family can make a large amount of our blueberry, frozen banana, maple syrup, fake ice cream. |