Patent ID: 8382019

Claim:
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 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 upon receiving electrical power via a power source; a current sensor for detecting current flowing through the motor; a controller coupled to the motor for controlling operation of the motor; the controller also being coupled to the current sensor and configured to detect at least an inrush current supplied to the motor for each shredding event of a plurality of shredding events, and the controller being configured to set a parameter of the shredder based on the detected inrush current supplied to the motor.