GBC ShredMaster SX20-08 Super Cross-Cut Shredder, P-4, 20 Sheets, 1 - 5 Users

The SX20-08 is the top of ACCO's personal ShredMaster range and the one that behaves like a small office machine: twenty sheets a pass at DIN 66399 P-4, an 8-gallon pull-out bin and a four-hour run time.

Four hours is the number that separates it from everything below it in the range. The PX10-06 stops after six minutes; the SX15-06 after two hours. The SX20-08 will keep going for a full afternoon, which changes what the machine can be asked to do — a shared shredder for a small team rather than a personal one that happens to be on the floor.

Key Features

• 240-minute run time. Four hours of continuous operation, twice the SX15-06 and forty times the ten-sheet models.
• Twenty sheets per pass on 20 lb paper at DIN 66399 P-4.
• Super cross-cut at 5/32 x 1 1/2 in (about 4 x 38 mm, roughly 152 mm²), the standard commercial level for confidential business records.
• Eight-gallon pull-out bin, a third more than the SX15-06.
• Under 58 dB with ACCO's Whisper Shred arrangement.
• Touch controls with LED indicators for bin full, door open, overheat and overload.
• Auto-reverse jam prevention and an Eco Power Save shutdown after two minutes idle.
• Rated for one to five users, in a 15.98 x 12.48 x 23.54 in cabinet, with a two-year warranty.

ACCO rates this machine for one to five users, which is a more useful figure than it looks. A user rating is really a statement about duty cycle and bin size together: it assumes each person contributes a normal office volume of paper and that neither the motor nor the container becomes the bottleneck. Five people is the point at which the 8-gallon bin starts needing daily attention rather than weekly.

As with the rest of the personal ShredMaster range, ACCO's own listing describes this head as micro-cut in the product name while the specification table says super cross-cut and P-4. The particle is around 152 mm², which is a P-4 cross-cut, and that is how we have classified it. If your specification says micro-cut and means P-5, this machine does not meet it.

Specifications

Sheet capacity is quoted on 20 lb paper, ACCO's stated basis for the ShredMaster range. ACCO does not publish a motor wattage or a shipping weight for every model, so those rows appear only where the manufacturer states them.

What's in the Box

Shredder with 8-gallon pull-out bin and power cord. ACCO's 6-8 gallon plastic shredder bag, part 1765016, names the SX20-08 on its compatibility list and is sold 100 to a box. Shredder oil is part 1760049.

Who Should Buy This — and Who Should Not

Buy the SX20-08 for a small office of up to five people, or for one person with a genuine backlog. The four-hour duty cycle means a records clear-out can be done in a single session, twenty sheets a pass keeps it moving, and at under 58 dB it will not drive anyone out of the room. It is the machine in ACCO's personal range that most people who think they want a commercial shredder actually need.

Do not buy it if your material includes credit cards, CDs or DVDs — this head is rated for paper, staples and paper clips only, and the Momentum X18-12 or X22-23 are the models rated for hard media. Do not buy it if a policy names P-5 or micro-cut in the DIN sense; the honest answers there are the Momentum M12-12 or M20-32. And if more than five people will share it, the bin becomes the problem before the motor does — a Momentum cabinet with a 12- or 23-gallon container is the better fit.