Patent ID: 9724704
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: B02C

Claim:
1. A shredder comprising: a housing having a throat for receiving 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 to be shredded to be fed into the cutter elements and the motor being operable in a shredding direction to drive the cutter elements to shred the articles fed therein; at least one thickness detector configured to detect a thickness of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat; and a controller coupled to the motor and the at least one thickness detector for receiving an input from the at least one thickness detector, wherein, when the at least one article is being received by the throat prior to operation of the motor, the controller either (a) operates the motor in the shredding direction to drive the cutter elements to shred the at least one article being received by the throat if the at least one thickness detector detects that the at least one article is below a predetermined maximum thickness threshold, or (b) prevents operation of the motor in the shredding direction if the at least one thickness detector detects that the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat is violating the predetermined maximum thickness threshold, wherein the controller monitors the input from the at least one thickness detector during operation of the motor in the shredding direction to shred the at least one article to determine whether the input from the at least one thickness detector detecting a violation of the predetermined maximum thickness threshold meets at least one criterion corresponding to an insertion of one or more additional articles, said controller being configured to prevent operation of the motor in the shredding direction immediately in response to determining that the at least one criterion has been met to prevent the one or more additional articles from jamming the shredder mechanism.