Shredder and auto feed system

A method for operating a shredder, the shredder comprising a housing;

• a shredder mechanism received in the housing and including a motor and cutter elements, the motor rotating the cutter elements in an interleaving relationship for shredding articles fed therein;
• a tray for holding a stack of articles to be fed into the cutter elements;
• a feed mechanism for feeding articles from the tray to the cutter elements of the shredder mechanism, the feed mechanism comprising an engaging surface for engaging articles;
• a feed driver system constructed to drive the feed mechanism to feed articles to the cutter elements;
• a waste level sensor operable to detect an accumulation of shredded particles discharged by the shredder mechanism and a queue sensor operable to determine an amount of articles provided on the tray;
• a waste container for receiving the accumulation of shredded particles from the cutter elements, and a controller coupled to the shredder mechanism, feed driver system, waste level sensor, and queue sensor, the controller being configured to compare the accumulation of shredded particles detected by the waste level sensor to the amount of articles provided on the tray detected by the queue sensor in order to perform a predetermined operation of the shredder;
• and the method comprising:
• providing the tray for holding a stack of articles;
• providing the shredder mechanism;
• providing the feed mechanism for feeding articles from the tray to the cutter elements of the shredder mechanism;
• providing the waste container for receiving shredded particles from the cutter elements;
• determining an amount of articles provided on the tray using the queue sensor;
• determining an amount of space available in the waste container for receiving shredded particles from the cutter elements using the waste level sensor;
• using the controller to compare the amount of articles provided on the tray to the amount of space available for collecting shredded particles in the waste container, and,
• based on a comparison of the amount of articles to the amount of space available, performing a predetermined operation of the shredder.