Performance Power PWR1800SA 1800w Electric Review

Good Points
Cheap

Bad Points
Doesn't do the job

General Comments
Performance Power PWR1800SA 1800w Electric - After using this machine for 20 minutes I had to take it apart to unjam it, and every 15-20 minutes thereafter, so having pored over the mechanism I think I can safely say that there is very little about its design that is right.



The design is a spinning disk with two slots containing blades at right angles to the gravity-fed chute. The chute is narrow at the top, and even narrower at the bottom, so if you use the plunger to try to force material through, it will simply jam above the blade. Even quite stiff branches are often simply scraped and bent above the blade, without going through the cutting slots. Greener or more flexible material is even more prone to this. If you put this uncut material back in for a second try, it usually goes straight through the same way.



There's little room below the blade, so the first stone will spin round in the machine, unable to exit, wrecking the blades. That's when you try to remove the blades for sharpening, but find they're attached to the disk with allen bolts and a tiny nut underneath which you can't quite reach, so you need to remove the disk, but the central bolt is underneath the body which is behind the legs of the machine that you spent 20 minutes trying to fit in the first place... which is where I gave up.



On the downside, the layout of the outflow is that it narrows and funnels through four or five narrow slots. I can't quite see why except that this layout ensures the maximum likelihood of blockages.



In use it is inevitably going to jam repeatedly, the first stone will wreck the blades, you won't be able to remove the blades for sharpening, it can handle only a couple of fine branches at a time, the outflow easily jams and even quite thick branches often won't be completely cut but merely scraped past the blade. Oh and that's liable to jam the disk again...



It took me two days to shred a couple of barrowloads of ivy. On the second pass I was reduced to putting in a handful at a time, since the entry slot is so small and liable to jam. And the rose stems have completely defeated it. In an hour I think I have shredded about three. Tomorrow it's going back to B&Q for a refund.