Patent ID: 7946514

Claim:
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 device comprising a contact portion in the throat, the contact portion being movable by a thickness between opposing major surfaces of the at least one article being received by the throat, a detectable portion movable by the contact portion, and a detector for detecting at least one position of the detectable portion, the at least one position of the detectable portion including a position when the detectable portion has been moved by the contact portion by an amount that correlates to a predetermined maximum thickness; and a controller coupled to the thickness detector; wherein the controller is operable to prevent the motor from driving the cutter elements in the shredding direction responsive to the detector detecting that the detectable portion has been moved by the amount that correlates to the predetermined maximum thickness; and wherein the controller is configured to vary the predetermined maximum thickness based on receiving an input parameter.