Patent ID: 7631822

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 configured to detect a thickness between opposing major surfaces of the at least one article to be shredded being received by the throat; a maximum thickness indicator having a visual or audible output and configured to indicate a visual or audible signal to a user of the shredder via the visual or audible output; a controller configured to actuate the maximum thickness indicator and indicate the visual or audible signal to the user via the visual or audible output responsive to the detector detecting that the thickness of the at least one article is at least equal to a predetermined maximum thickness.