Patent ID: 7631824

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 by the user 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 dual-purpose detector configured to detect (a) a presence of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat and (b) a thickness between opposing major surfaces of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat; and a controller configured to operate the motor to drive the cutter elements in the shredding direction responsive to the detector detecting both the presence of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat and that the thickness thereof is less than a predetermined maximum thickness, the controller also being configured to prevent the motor from driving the cutter elements in the shredding direction responsive to the detector detecting that the thickness of the article to be shredded being received by the throat meets the predetermined maximum thickness.