What to Know About Paper Shredders...Who Knew?

Life is getting more complicated.  Now I learned something new about paper shredders. 

I just bought my third shredder, from Costco.  My first two died.  The second one is a Royal as is my new one. 

First, if you buy a new Royal shredder, it won't look new.  I opened mine up and there were bits of paper already stuck in the shredder.  It worked fine and looked new otherwise.  I found this in an Amazon description:

" A few pieces of shredded paper may be found inside the shredder and the waste basket. This is normal. All Royal shredders are tested at the factory to insure quality."

I've also learned that you can only run paper shredders for three to six minutes at a time.  After this amount of time (which is often written on the back of shredders), you want to stop shredding to allow the motor to cool off.  Otherwise you may end up with a dead shredder. 

Here's what the Royal manual says:

The 1212X will automatically terminate power during any of the following abnormal situations:
1.  Operating the shredder at the maximum capacity continuously for a
prolonged period of time....
2. Exceeding the shredding capacity..., or if the paper is not fed squarely into the
feed opening.

Both abnormal operations may result in the activation of the automatic thermal motor overload
protection circuit, which terminates the power to the unit.

In case of a major paper jam:

1.  Unplug the power cord from the AC outlet and wait at least 25 minutes
for the thermal overload protection circuit to reset.

2.  Plug the power cord back into the AC outlet and press the ON/OFF button.  Press the Reverse Button and pull the remaining paper out of the cutters.

3.  With the Main Switch in the
auto position and the feed opening clear,
you are now ready to resume normal shredding. 


I've had a shredder seemingly die, then work again after a few days.  The above explains this mysterious behavior.  There's some kind of devilishly complicated "thermal protection motor overload protection circuit" that keeps the machine turned off until the machine has determined that it has rested long enough.