Thermal Overload Protection is a feature in all Fellowes shredders to help prevent the shredder from overheating.
Most personal shredders will have a what is often referred to as a 'duty cycle' which is the recommended amount of time that the shredder can shred continuously, and the amount of time required for the motor to cool off before beginning another shredding cycle, or duty cycle.
Thermal overload protection protects your shredder if you happen to exceed the rated duty cycle and the shredder's motor gets too warm. This feature will shut down the shredder and force the cool down period so that you can't inadvertently overheat the shredder.
For example, a shredder may be able to shred for 5 minutes continuously, but may shred for a longer period of time if not being used continuously. But if shredding periodically over 10 minutes, the shredder may stop running. If the recommended cool down time is 15 minutes, you would just need to wait 15 minutes before shredding again.
When shredding, we do recommend letting the shredder cool down for the recommended cool down period, even if the shredder will turn on in less time.
The shorter the cool down time, the shorter the next shredding cycle will be, since the motor may not have cooled completely.
If you find that you are shredding to where the Thermal Overload Protection forces a cool down often, you may want to consider a shredder with a longer duty cycle.