Patent ID: 9573135
Date: 2017-02-21
CPC Classifications: B02C

Claim:
1. A shredder comprising: a housing having a throat open to an exterior of the housing for permitting a user to feed at least one article to be shredded; a shredder mechanism received in the housing and including an electrically powered motor and cutter elements, the shredder mechanism enabling the at least one article fed into the throat to be shredded to be fed into the cutter elements and the motor being operable to drive the cutter elements in a shredding direction so that the cutter elements shred the articles fed therein; a thickness detector configured to detect a thickness of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat; a presence detector configured to detect a presence of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat; and a controller coupled to the thickness detector, the presence sensor, and the motor of the shredding mechanism; wherein the controller is configured to start the motor to drive the cutter elements in the shredding direction only in response to the presence sensor detecting the presence of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat and the thickness detector detecting that the thickness thereof is less than a predetermined maximum thickness; wherein the controller is configured to prevent the starting of the motor to drive the cutter elements in the shredding direction responsive to the thickness detector detecting that the thickness of the at least one article is at least equal to the predetermined maximum thickness.