Customer Reviews

Panasonic KP4A-BK Kp-4a battery pencil sharpener, black, 1 Unit

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I bought two sharpeners. I sharpened about ten pencils with the first one (excellent sharpening while it lasted), and something "let go" inside. The motor ran but the rotating blade had no more power - as soon as I pressed the pencil into the blade it would stop turning while the motor continued running freely.

I unwrapped the second sharpener to see if it would hold up better. Again, after about 10 pencils, exactly the same thing happened.

When I disassembled one of them to analyze the failure, I discovered that a crucial area of the plastic gear that drives the blade mechanism was stripped away so that the gear was spinning practically freely. It was unable to drive the blade mechanism with any significant strength.

Conclusion: This product is potentially an excellent pencil sharpener but it has a major design weakness in its drive train. I only put one star on this review because zero stars is not available.

I use this on high-quality colored art pencils. They are very soft and shatter in ordinary pencil sharpeners with blades. This sharpener uses gears instead of a blade and sharpens at the same angle as other sharpeners that use gears (those with blades sharpen at a different angle). This is a replacement for my first one which lasted ~10 years and saved me ~$100 worth of pencils (these pencils are about a dollar each). I will not use another style.

My daughter needed a pencil sharpener for when we're on vacation. I bought this after reading all the comments on how well it works and before it broke, it worked great! Sharpened pencils to a needle sharp point. Problem is that it's easy to bog it down when moderate downward pressure on the pencil is applied. Kids don't have the finesse to lightly press down on the pencil and after a hundred or so sharpens the cutter assembly no longer rotates.
I disassembled the unit and found that the square post on the white drive gear that drives the cutter assembly was rounded off, likewise for the receptacle on the cutter assembly. It appears the square post is a bit short making matters worse. Once it become rounded off, the cutter no longer sharpens since it is easily stopped by the pencil.

So, I cannot recommend this for a kid, even a careful one. For an adult I think this would be fine.

If Panasonic could redesign the drive coupling mechanism by adding about 1/10" to the height of the square post, this sharpener would last much longer.

Edit: Being the geek that I am, I made a new aluminum drive axle and post for this weak gear, extended the length of the driving post and now this sharpener is fixed and working well! The rest of it will wear out before this drive gear/shaft will. This confirms that Panasonic could make an easy improvement to this product - not necessarily out of metal, but just extend that driving post!

Go for the electric and more robust models. This one had a great call, small and mobile, easy to use. But it lasted for no more than 3 months, under very light duty.

Internal plastic parts fell shy on expectations, as did Panasonic's customer care when prompted to service it... in fact don't you ever try to use their customer care email form, it simply does not work.

The sharpener worked fine for a while, then it started making a terrible noise and grining the wood, but not shrpening...not having saved the box or paperwork, I threw it out. I'll go back and get a Radio Shack one next time.

The Panasonic KP-4A is the best (yes, best) portable pencil sharpener I have ever seen. I have owned a few in the past, and they never worked very well; they were loud, cut crudely and broke the lead about half the time. The KP-4A cuts better than many desktop shapeners- and I mean better. It is loud, but no more than other models and its sound is more of a mechanical hum than a grinding roar. I would definetely buy this if you ever have situations where you need to write but might not by near a sharpener. I highly recommend this product, and, for its price, why not? :-)

NOTE: If you would need to use this in really quite environments- don't. No portable electric one will be quiet enough so you'll need a manual one.

It broke after six months under normal usage. This seems like a good product out of the box, but it has a serious design flaw. The hardened spiral cutters sharpen well, but the cheap plastic gears driving the cutters aren't meant for the long haul.

I got this to sharpen my daughter's colored pencils, which she breaks constantly. It worked perfectly, sharpening the pencils quickly and easily and putting a very fine point on them every time. Then, after a few dozen uses, it suddenly broke, in exactly the same way many of the other low-scoring reviews have described: the motor runs, but the blades no longer turn.

Dismantling it, I quickly found the culprit. The motor connects to the blades through a series of three small gears, all of which are made of low-grade plastic. Unsurprisingly, the torque had quickly stripped the smallest of these gears, which obviously should have been made of metal (or at least stronger plastic).

Panasonic's customer service department was surprisingly responsive when I called them, but they no longer make this product or stock parts for it, so they referred me to an appliance repair supplier. Neither that supplier nor any other hardware vendor I tried carries this nonstandard gear. The device is essentially unfixable, and the $20 I spent on it is wasted.

I suspect that Panasonic may have switched to the cheap gears later in the production run, explaining why many people rave about this otherwise well-designed device. It may have been a great buy once, but I strongly advise avoiding it now.

I draw with graphite pencils and hard colored pencils, and this has been the first motorized pencil sharpener that's worked really well for me. It sharpens to a fine point time and again. I've tried THEM ALL, and this one is the best battery-operated/electronic of the bunch (even the really expensive X-Acto). I have no complaints.

This battery powered pencil sharpner is the best that I have found for prisma color pencils. The only problem is the hole where you put the pencil in opens and closes when the pencil is sharpened. If the point breaks off, it is hard to get it out.