Customer Reviews

Royal Machines 1280MX Shredder 12-Sheet Heavy Duty Cross Cut Shredder with Auto Start/Stop

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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I would have to say that the shredder worked well for a while. It broke down after about 6 months and after submitting my return request in writing, after I had already emailed a copy of my original receipt to a customer service person, I received my return authorization by mail and shipped it back. I received my new one within 6 weeks which after a couple of months has totally quit working again with less than normal usage. I was surprized because I thought Royal was a quality company, but two strikes and your out...

I decided to ignore all the other bad reviews about this product and purchased this machine, figuring I might get lucky. It failed within one minute of use. I tested it first with some bulk mailings and then a CD through its CD shredding slot. It never ran again after the CD. Total run time was under a minute.

I'm glad it failed because now I'm forced to return it. I might have lived with the terrible ergonomics of this unit if it had not failed.

The ergonomics are just terrible: The paper slot is exactly 8 1/2" wide, so you must be very carefull about aligning the papers you wish to shred each and every time you insert them! Even worst is the fact that the paper slot reguires that you insert paper vertically. Now my waste paper basket is under my desk and there is not enough room to insert my trash vertically into the slot provided. Even if there was enough head room under a desk, you'd have to peer underneath your desk, each and every time that you wished to shred something.

It would be hard to design a worse shredder, ergonically.

I just purchased a shredder from Staples for $79.94 with free shipping (Identityguard 24 sheet item no.576954). It is a day old but already it seems far superior to the Royal. It also passed shredding a CD. Its paper slot is very wide and is at a 45 degree angle allowing me to insert paper easily into the shredder, which is under my desk. The one difference I have noted between this shredder and the Royal is that the Royal, during its brief lifetime, shredded things into smaller pieces. The Staples unit shreds paper into 1/4" strips that are also the length of the piece of paper. The Royal also shredded paper into 1/4" strips but also cut this strip into shorter pieces. So the Royal was more secure but for most home users who really cares.

If you are looking a shredder for a Doctor's office this is probably not the shredder of choice but a doctor's office should not be looking at $100 shredders. For most users that do not need a CIA quality shredder I am not sure the shredding method is important.

When we got this thing it was great. it handled everything we threw at it beautifully and effortlessly. then after about 6 months, the containter was full, we turned it off, emptied the container, and it never powered back on again. i called royal and their help desk is a recording telling me to mail my reciept to a PO box in New Jersey to get the return authorization. forget that, i need a shredder, not to wait 4 months for them to get back to me.

so i called the local service center and talked to one of their repair techs. he told me its one of two things, the fuse thats soldered to the main board or the main board fried. reguardless, the labor warrenty is only 90 days so i would have to pay $48 an hour labor to fix it. the tech said he considers these disposable, use it till it breaks and buy a new one.

Ok...if you have read all the reviews on this thing and are still considering this product, then something is wrong with your head. Similar to other stories on here, I picked up the Royal 1280MX just 5 days ago. Works okay with paper. Tried the CD shredder slot- first one worked great. 2 days later tried another CD (only the second one)...it jammed, tried to auto reverse it out, then kicked itself off. Following the instructions for auto-shutdown...I left it off for 25 minutes (the rest of the night). Tried it again in the morning and the stupid thing wouldn't even power on. IT IS DEAD!! Lucky for me this happened as soon as it did...I am returning this for a full refund and buying a new shredder that works (checking reviews like this first). BUYER BEWARE!!!

We purchased this shredder on October 4th, 2004. Since then we have used it 2-3 times a week, shredding on average less than 10 pages at a time. Yesterday it suddenly failed while my wife was shredding a CD; the motor kept running but the blades suddenly no longer turned.

Our first thought was that it was jammed, so we opened the shredder, cleaned the blade mechamism, and tried restarting it. This did not help, however, so we had to open the shredder again. Since the motor kept turning but the blades did not, and there were no visible obstructions within the blade mechanism, we decided to look at the gears between the motor and the blades.

We removed the shield covering the gears, and noticed that the grooves on one of the gears were worn out on about a 1 inch stretch. In some ways I guess this is not a surprise, since two of the gears are plastic and two are metal. The plastic material used on the gears is also probably too soft for this purpose.

The issue of two gears being plastic ticked me off because both here and on the Royal website this item is listed as having an "all-steel gear construction". Later on, when we took the shredder to a repair shop authorized by Royal, I got a phone number to Royal customer service. The phone number was answered by an answering machine that asked me to leave a message. When Royal eventually called me back, I explained to them that their advertizement was misleading since not all of the gears were made of steel, and I told them I wanted a refund. The lady I spoke with explained that I would need to submit a refund request in writing. I later on took this issue up with Amazon, and (to my surprise, I have to admit) refunded me the money I paid for it.

In short, this is one piece of equipment I would definitely not recommend. On the other hand, I have no complaints about Amazon's customer service.

When shredding paper, credit cards, & CD/DVDs worked great--but, its effectiveness didn't last. While shredding a pile of papers, the shredder jammed. I don't think I exceeded the maximum sheets allowed at one time. But, even after attempting to clear the shredder's blades (difficult, if not impossible), the shredder turns on (sometimes), but it won't shred. I can not locate my receipt, so I'm stuck with a $100 useless box of cheap plastic.

Ok where to start? I had mine for 3 months or so when it quit on me. The power light wouldn't light up and it just wouldn't do anything. I followed the warranty instructions and mailed all my information in - it's been 4 weeks and no response! The frustration got the best of me so I cracked it open. Turns out there was a blown fuse on the controller board. 5 bucks and a trip to RShack later and I had my fix. I bought a fuse holder and 4 pack of 5A 125V fuses. Now when it blows again I won't have to de-solder the fuse to replace it! It's really a shame because this shredder is awesome when it's working, but it is designed to break - the metal bracket around the blades traps small pieces of paper, and eventually the motor draws too much power because it's trying to turn the blades which have all kinds of paper stuck in them and then the fuse blows. Bottom line - Awesome shredder - powers through ccards and cd's, poor design - designed to break, extra lousy customer service - gotta snail mail your warranty, and they'll ignore it - maybe try sending it registered mail so you'll have proof of delivery! Every three months I'll be slapping a new fuse in this baby, and loving it's sweet shredding power. I'll never buy a royal product again though I guess they really expect people to buy a new shredder every three months. Buyer Beware!

Not much I can add to the other negative reveiws, other than to say the reviews are accurate. This is a horrible shredder!

Worked fine..for about 2 months..then nothing. Just will not work..period. I did not misuse shredder, no nails, staples or anything of the sort. In fact, I didn't put anything thru it except paper.
Now I've got to buy another one. TWO MONTHS..and it failed.We're not talking daily or heavy useage either. I'm talking for home use, nothing heavy...just c-card,bank statements..etc. TWO MONTHS of light use, and it fails.
Unless you just like throwing your money away, do not buy this product.

Please do not waste your precious money on this hunk of junk. Once you put in more than 5 pieces of paper at one time you could run into trouble. I had this shredder for 3 months and as soon as my husband shredded a CD it stopped working period. We tried to clean out all the paper between the blades as best as we could (which is almost impossible) Now I'm stuck with a $100.00 bill for this B.S. (So Called) Shredder.

Very top heavy - Basket is made out of cheap plastic.

For all the reasons listed above. Top heavy, jams way too often for a home/office grade shredder, and my main complaint is the stupid nylon gears. One of those gears self destructed after just over a year of very light use. I really wish that manufacturers would stop using those cheap gears, but everyone does it so I guess I can't blame Royal too much. I guess you get what you pay for and $99 for a shredder nowadays just isn't enough.