Customer Reviews

Fellowes 3229901 PowerShred 99Ci 17 Sheet Cross-Cut Shredder

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

We have owned two previous small business class shredders. This is our third. Without any doubt, it is the best shredder I have ever used/owned.

I bought this to replace our reliable Fellowes DM15C Shredder. That unit still works great, but my toddler son now has the dexterity and strength that would theoretically allow him to open up the sliding plastic CD/Credit Card sheild that served as the main barrier between his little hands and the powerful shredding mechanism. Also, after watching one of our cats activate the shredder twice in the past week while using it as an intermediate step to the office window, it seemed like a problem waiting to happen.

SAFE-SENSE (Every Shredder Should Have This)

The main thing I liked about the SB-99Ci is the Safe-Sense technology that shuts off the shredding blades when a hand (or any other body part) gets too close to the blades. In addtion to the no-brainer step of powering the thing off when I am not around, this technology looked like a very good backup protection to ensure that my young son retains all of his fingers until adulthood.

The Safe-Sense technology is extremely effective. I did not realize that it works by detecting fingers etc. when they come into contact with the metal trim that surrounds the shredder mouth (I thought the trim was just decorative...but it is functional). This is an extremely reliable detection method (i.e. vs/ tryng to detect motion or heat) and IMMEDIATELY shuts down the shredder if it is operating, or prevents it from operating at all if it has not started up yet. There is even a nice little LED indicator that lights up when the Safe-Sense shutoff is triggered, so it is very easy to test it out from time to time. Of course, there is a well hidden switch (that requires positive effort to adjust) that allows you to disable Safe-Sense if you don;t want/need it, but I can't think of any good reason that anyone would want to do that.

OTHER NICE STUFF

While Safe-Sense was the primary motiviation for this purchase, I also really liked the clean and simple styling of the unit, and was very pleased to see that it has a good build-quality when I received it in-person.

Another pleasant surprise is how QUIET this thing is when it is operating. The motor is so quiet that the main thing you hear while it is doing its job, is the actual sound of the blades pulverizing whatever you are feeding into it. The motor is a low-level (and low frequency) drone in the background. I thought our previous Fellowes shredder was quiet, but the SB-99Ci puts it to shame.

The designers of this unit also added some enhancements that, although not totally neccessary, are very nice to have. For example, the strip of unique LED indicators on top of the shredder is great to have. Our previous unit had a single indicator for "bin-open" and "bin-full" which forced you to do limited investigation to figure out why it was lighting up. The SB-99Ci lets you know EXACTLY what is going on with an intuitive sybmol that lights up. Finally, the little progressive "efficiency graph" is neat to watch, although I doubt I would ever use it to optimize my shredding throughput, which is purportedly what it is designed for.

If you are looking for an attractively designed, well built, easy-to-use, and most importanly SAFE shredder for your home or small business, the Fellowes SB-99Ci is an excellent choice.

Having used shredders for years, I am very adept at jamming them. I didn't believe that this shredder would not jam, but it is true. You have to work hard to trick the sensor to cause it indigestion. Even then, it will usually clear it automatically. The Safesense safety feature is awesome and the design is high tech.

It is more expensive than a lot of shredders out there but if quality and safety are important to you, it is worth it.

Only negative so far is the wheels are difficult to put on. I ended up leaving them off since I don't intend to move it around.

My PS55CC lasted me 10 years so I knew I would be buying another Fellowes after it died. I replaced it with a PS-79Ci but after 5000 pages over 1 weekend I decided I needed something larger. So far I've been very happy with this one. I wanted to point out that Hefty 30 Gallon Twist Tie Blue Large (2' 5.75" x 3') trash bags ($4.59 for 24 at a midwest home center where you save big money) fit this shredder. I think for this size of shredder you need to use a bag. The bin is large and unwieldy and it is rather difficult to invert and empty it into a garbage bag.

The prior home office shredders had short life spans---too many jams, too little capacity, etc. I felt a larger, stronger shredder would be the answer---and so bought this one. It arrived fully assembled, except for the rollers (I needed help to install the castors). So far: perfect. Quiet. Safe--authomatic sensor shuts the machine off should fingers and paws get too close to the slot. Takes multiple sheets in larger quantities. Window allows me to see when basket is full. This is a new model for 2008 and I am very pleased with it!

This is the 4th shredder that I owned. The prior ones were noisy, and quickly jammed. This is worth the money - you only get what you pay for. Jams are corrected all by themselves - I tried to jam this machine, it is almost impossible. Love the safe-guard technology that saves your fingers. The metal that surrounds the paper slot is heat sensitive to your fingers or any other body part and immediately stops the machine. This does not happen if you put paper on the metal strip. The SB-99Ci was a little bigger and heavier than I thought, but it is medium to heavy duty use and lives up to that. It takes 17 pages at once and most shredder bags and some recycling bags fit into the bin. The other thing I love about this machine, is that when it indicates that the bag is full -it is full. No need to tamp down the paper because it doesn't bunch up in the middle of the bin. All the other shredders that I own, I had to constantly tamp down the paper and shred again cause the paper piled up in the centre and never filled the bags on their own. This may seem small, but i have other things to do than to sit there tamping down paper, unjamming slots, and shredding 3-5 papers at a time. I wanted a machine that I can put the paper in and that's that - no machine sitting. Oh, and did I mention that it is extremely quiet - unbelievable! Every other shredder let every one know I was shredding. One thing though, don't forget to oil the machine. This is quite simple, just put the oil bottle's nozzle along the slot with the machine in reverse and then run in reserve for 10 seconds (they say to do this after each bag full to perserve the cutters). That is all the maintenance that it needs. This is the one to own and the 2 year warranty is a plus and is the lifetime warranty on the cutting blades for the life of the shredder. Fellowes is excellent on their warranties.

This shredder was bought for a small office. I love the 17 page capacity and safety features it has built in. The second day we had it a toddler put his fingers by the shredder slot. Thank goodness the safety feature works!!! The only downfall I can see with this shredder is that when you empty the waste basket, you have to kind of play with it to get it to go back correctly. Not a big deal, but is a minor inconvenience. It will not work unless the waste basket is reinstalled correctly and tightly. It is a level 3 security shredder, munching up 17 pages with ease. Mine came with oil for the blades and 3 waste basket liners. The Amazon ad said it came with 36 liners, but that was a misprint and I believe they have corrected that. Even so it was a great deal and $80.00 less than the office supply store wanted for it. Best shredder I found for the money!!!!

Jan 12, 2009 Review Update: We contacted Fellowes and they actually replaced the entire unit. I would like to note that Fellowes has now redesigned the plastic pin making it a) stronger and b) replaceable... that is.... it is now attached with 4 small screws instead of being molded to the wastebasket. My guess is that they were having to replace a lot of wastebaskets due to broken pins. The redesign is much improved over the old design. Closing the wastebasket is still a challenge as you have to give it a semi-forceful palm slap, but at least the pin appears more sturdy.

One other note. The instructions indicate that you are to turn this until off after every use. We started having an issue with the unit running constantly, but Fellowes has replaced our unit and we are careful to turn it off after each use.

Review Update: I would like to mention that closing the shredder waste basket can be a challenge. You have to apply a forceful push to the middle of the basket to get it to close properly. Unfortunately, this caused us to break the plastic pin on the waste basket that depresses the "basket in place" switch. I ended up having to insert a paper clip and some tape to keep the switch in the engaged position.

Original Review: We needed a larger capacity shredder for our corporate office of about 10-12 people. We have a couple of smaller shredders, but they are noisy and have a smaller capacity. After reading the other reviews, I decided on this shredder.

Shredder placement: We wanted this shredder to be easily accessible to our office. The primary users of this shredder decided to place it in the open area where there are about eight cubicles. To meet this requirement, the shredder could not be disruptive to the workforce.

Based upon our actual users, they have not complained about it being excessively loud (certainly not that high pitched grinding associated with other shredders), it has not been disruptive to the work area, it is used everyday, it has not jammed and our shredder 'usage' has actually increased with this product. The waste capacity is satisfactory for our office (we have to empty the basket about once per week).

Overall, our office has been extremely satisfied with this product and I would highly recommend it.

I originally bought a SB-99Ci shredder via Amazon.com back in July/August 2008. I must admit that I was always a little disappointed with the operating noise which I found was far from the advertized "SilentShred(tm) offers ultra-quiet shredder performance for shared workspaces". However it seemed to work pretty well. Never a problem with jamming, a quick press of the forward button for a couple of seconds when it did seize up (very rare) and the motor would power through to clear whatever was in it. I'm not sure that it's always capable of 17 sheets, but I suppose it all depends on the paper density, humidity, etc. which will obviously affect what it can do. Having said all that, it was a great machine while it lasted... Then a couple of weeks ago the auto function stopped working. I followed the instruction manual in as far as cleaning around the IR paper sensor area just inside the opening (which you can't see!) with rubbing alcohol and cotton buds, but alas to no avail. It would just run continuously until overheating in just a few minutes so I had to keep shutting it off between grabbing piles of papers from across my office. I phoned Fellowes, explained what was happening, and they sent me a new shredder which I received yesterday. The one hugely noticeable difference with the new replacement compared with the malfunctioning one is just how very quiet it is. I could hardly believe it. I used to oil my old one each time I replaced the shredder bag, so it was well and regularly maintained, but this one is just like night and day in comparison as far as noise is concerned. I am now thinking that perhaps there was always something not quite right with my original machine, but how would you know without having another one along side it as a comparison? Obviously I have not used the replacement for very long now, but it is far quieter than my old machine, so much so that I just had to write a note to explain my experience. I can not fault the customer service at Fellowes, who I found to be very efficient and responsive to a customer experiencing problems with one of their machines. Obviously I can not speak for the long term durability of this product based on my experience, but so far so good ;-)

I bought this to replace a 7yr old ATIVA that finally burned out. I have a home based business and was attracted to the price, power shred feature and Fellowes name. I wanted the larger basket so I didn't have to empty it so often. I use this shredder lightly at least every other day and at least three times a month with heavy - 2 wastebaskets worth- of paper & junk mail.
The machine is solid, quieter and smooth when shredding. Not real fast. When you have an armful of paper to shred, the power shred feature of stopping, reversing, then forward again is a hindrance. You can press the button manually to move it along faster. The feeder throat is a bit deeper before it catches and starts to shred. You really have to push what you are feeding into it before it grabs and starts. When working on an accumulated pile of stuff to shred and got ahead of myself I found it was stopping, doing the automatic reverse,and I was already feeding the next handful and had to stop and wait for this to do it's thing. Seems more sensitive to what it's handling which puts it in the stop/reverse/forward mode a lot. It also gets hot and requires a longer cooldown more frequently than I was accustomed to with the ATIVA. As the basket fills, you need to frequently press down the shredded bits to keep the area clear. It looks to me to be more sensitive to being full than it should be. There's still room in the bucket and the sensor stops the flow.(?) The output seems to pile on itself instead of spreading across open space in receptacle which stops it until you clear the path again. Again, machine seems to be more sensitive than it needs to be. A 13gal standard drawstring kitchen bag will work with a little fiddling. I taped a ltr size manila file folder to the inside front of the plastic basket to cover corners that ripped the bag as I pulled it out the first time. Lets you fill the basket to the max and remove it easily now. I've had it for almost two months. It's adequate. True test over time is yet to be seen. It seems OK for the price. I didn't want to spend $1k for a shredder. You get what you pay for. If you need speed you may not be happy with this.

I bought this shredder for my home office to replace another Fellowes shredder that had begun to "shred" itself after a number of years of use/abuse. I am a corporate recruiter and I needed a way to shred stacks of hard copy resumes that accumulate after they have been scanned into our data base. I also wanted a shredder that was capable of shredding all those credit card offers that arrive in the mail without having to open the envelope. This shredder has been up to the task. Shredding which used to occupy much of my idle time is now completed in a few minutes and I never have to open a credit card offer again. The only negative is that when you remove the plastic bag it tends to get caught on the bottom of the view window and tear. But after the first time it happened I was aware of the design deficiency and I just hold the bag away from it with my hand when I removed it. I would recommend this product to anyone with a home or small office.