And thou shall shred again

The journey of this article starts with the simple task of shredding paper. And this time it was not just a few sheets. You know how it goes, you try to find the limit of how many papers you can do at the same time.

The paper shredder in question has three modes: automatic, off and reverse. So there is no just on mode, it is assumed that the shredder may only start when a paper is pushed in so that it automatically starts and stops. There is a latch in the machine that gets pushed to close the starting circuit.

The thing with this latch is that it is annoying, sometimes gets stuck or gets paper stuck on top of it. And that tiny bit of paper on top of the latch makes it harder to detect the paper. Because there is no always on option, you cannot let the paper go through, reversing also does not clear it.

So one day enough was enough, it was time to improve this piece of hardware. The electronics inside were accessible, as they should be. There was quite a bit of paper pieces that made their way inside the chassis. After cleaning that out, I removed the latch and was left with the two wires.

Connecting those wires directly two solved all problems. Now the shredder just runs until you switch it to off, and there is no latch to get stuck on. How hard would it have been to just provide an always on option as well, or is that too much to ask?