[HN Gopher] The other Phillips head screwdriver
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The other Phillips head screwdriver
Author : turtlegrids
Score : 52 points
Date : 2023-01-28 17:48 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shoppress.dormanproducts.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (shoppress.dormanproducts.com)
| buildsjets wrote:
| There are many other Phillips-like but not Phillips head designs
| in common use, including:
|
| Pozidriv, used on many devices manufactured in the EU.
|
| Phillips ACR which is Phillips with extra ridges for more
| torque/less stripping
|
| Frearson is used in fine woodworking screws
|
| MorTorque is used in some aerospace applications. Rolls-Royce jet
| engines are covered with them.
|
| Offset Cruiciform, AKA Torq-set, aka Nazi Screws, were previously
| common in aviation but are not typically used in new commercial
| design.
|
| As usual wiki has a pretty decent article.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives#Cruciform...
|
| They missed the offset cruciform tho. https://www.phillips-
| screw.com/drive_systems/torq-set/
| Oxidation wrote:
| They didn't miss it, it's near the end under tamper-resistant
| for some reason.
| blep_ wrote:
| "Tamper-resistant" usually just means "normal people won't
| have a screwdriver for it".
| analog31 wrote:
| Something I've found is that if I don't have precisely the right
| bit on hand, a sharp new Phillips bit will usually work well
| enough, and much better then a dull rounded one.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| I keep going for bits that kind of work and if I can't find
| anything my lowest common denominator is the angle grinder.
| Then I can replace the thing with a proper screw.
| smcleod wrote:
| Interesting that the USA doesn't seem to use Pozi.
|
| In Australia and NZ -
|
| Pozi are by far the most common in building/construction
| (although everyone refers them as Phillips colloquially) with
| square drive there after. Cheap/poorly made hardware from China
| will at times ship with Phillips instead of Pozi (or JIS), you
| can always tell because Philip screwdrivers are easy to strip in
| comparison and require slightly more talk to tighten I think.
|
| With machined screws such as those used on electronics the most
| common for commercial/industrial would probably be Torx, followed
| by Pozi. In cheap consumer gear it's probably a mix of Phillips
| and Pozi.
|
| Really no one should be using Phillips in this day and age, it's
| horribly dated - easy to strip and low torque.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| I'm sure it's not a factor in their general popularity, but
| from an aesthetic point of view I think Pozidriv is inferior to
| Philips; pozidriv fastener heads look messy with those 45
| degree tickmarks. But both are inferior to Robertson/Square.
| Those look the most neat and trim of any screw head.
| gerikson wrote:
| I got a set of JIS screwdrivers to help me disassemble Nikkor
| lenses.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I wish I'd read this before camming out the screws holding my
| Nikkor 105mm trying to get into it to fix a sticky aperture :(.
|
| On the bright side, I didn't completely round them out - I knew
| enough to stop when it came out the first time. I've been
| meaning to send it off, but maybe I'll just invest in the
| proper drivers instead.
| gerikson wrote:
| I let a repairman service a 105/2.5 that didn't focus to
| infinity, as well as a 35/1.4 with slow aperture blades, but
| sadly he suffered a stroke and had to stop working :(
| thinkloop wrote:
| I never realized how bad Phillips was until I started renovating
| a home this year. They are truly the worst of all the options.
| They need to be phased out completely. Square is better in every
| way. A core problem with Phillips is not only that the cross is
| simply not the best shape to hold torque, which it's not, but
| that there is no consistency between the crosses themselves. With
| square, you only have to worry about size. With Phillips, you
| have to pay attention to the angles and character of the cross,
| in addition to size. One Phillips might be deeper or skinnier
| than another that looks the same. Matching the perfect driver to
| a screw is difficult in general, and near impossible by eye.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Phillips is great when you're screwing in an area you can't
| see. The bit slips in nicely and you don't have to think about
| size. But yeah Robertsons are nice in many other instances.
| vinay427 wrote:
| > The bit slips in nicely
|
| As someone with very little recent experience with these
| types, could you elaborate on what you mean by this, at least
| compared to the Robertson screw?
| samwillis wrote:
| Seems to be down, mirror here:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220929080424/https://shoppress...
|
| In Europe (well worldwide) there is another "Philips" like screw
| head called Pozidriv [0], it has a small engraved cross 45deg to
| the main recess on the screw head. The drivers have flutes in the
| head identifying them. They are _much_ better than Philips as
| they are designed to not ride out until under a high enough
| torque where the screw could be damaged.
|
| In the UK they are the dominant product in hardware stores.
|
| 0: https://shop4fasteners.co.uk/blog/pozidriv-vs-phillips/
| zabzonk wrote:
| i don't know about "dominant" - most of the screws i come
| across in the uk, for example in computers and other hardware,
| are phillips.
|
| not saying pozidrive aren't better
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think it's screws at Ikea, B&Q, Wickes etc where you'll
| find Pozidrive is dominant.
| turtlegrids wrote:
| >Seems to be down, mirror here: ...
|
| Thanks for posting the archive.org link. The site _was_ fast
| when I posted this earlier today. I suppose they don't receive
| much traffic, and host their site on a non-scaling potato
| server.
| afandian wrote:
| Until I heard about Robertson in Canada I had assumed that
| commodity items like screws and screwdrivers were truly
| international. Is Pozidriv really not common in the US?
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Yeah, it's super uncommon. Torx is what you find on most
| fasteners that aren't Phipps or slotted. I've found Pozi in
| two applications in my house:
|
| 1) An IKEA bed requires it for some screws that self-tap into
| sheet metal with a machine screw thread. Running them in with
| Philips is hopeless. Does IKEA supply the required driver? Of
| course not.
|
| 2) Blum cup hinges use Pozi for the adjustment screws. By
| extension, if you want an actual Pozi screw driver, find a
| local joint that supplies Blum to cabinet shops.
|
| There are at least a few other cruciform drives out there
| that you'll rarely encounter:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
| RobotToaster wrote:
| In my experience torx is a lot better than pozidrive.
| frankus wrote:
| IKEA uses them extensively in all of their hardware. If you
| find yourself, say, assembling a whole kitchen worth of
| IKEA cabinets it's worth picking up a few bits.
| theamk wrote:
| Pozidrives are pretty common in bigger US bit sets, even
| cheap ones.
|
| Example: a $10 bit set:
| https://www.harborfreight.com/security-bit-set-with-
| case-100... has Pozi #0, #1, #2 (with spares) and #3
| jiveturkey wrote:
| the bits and drivers are extremely common. pozi head
| screws are almost nonexistent in US. unless you consider
| IKEA sold in US to be a US product
| avhon1 wrote:
| Pozidriv is very uncommon in the US.
|
| Philips (00, 0, and 2) are by far the most common screw heads
| here for most people. (Pretty much every household will have
| these for changing batteries, assembling furniture, doing
| minor repairs...) Slotted screw heads used to be ubiquitous,
| and the screwdrivers still are, though mostly for use as pry
| bars. You'll see some socket-head hex-drive stuff, in a mix
| of metric and fractional inch drives (which can inform you on
| how US-centric the design and manufacture of the product
| was), and maybe some Torx (especially in electronics). I've
| only seen Robertson in drywall and decking screws at the
| hardware store, and I haven't yet seen them used in someone's
| home.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Pozidriv is very uncommon in the US.
|
| IKEA use them. Lots of people get disposable Pozi drivers
| from them and probably don't even realize they're
| different.
| fmajid wrote:
| Generally in the US people who actually care about their
| fasteners will use Torx.
| silisili wrote:
| Yep. In my house, every thing I work on or replace gets
| replaced with Torx screws. Slotted have their place, I
| have no idea how or why Phillips ever got popular.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Many electrical components have a screw that takes a
| Phillips or Robertson.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| For those who don't know: the head of the screw will
| literally accept a slotted, Phillips, or Robertson
| driver.
|
| Milwaukee (popular among electricians) now makes a
| screwdriver that's the union of those shapes that they
| call an ECX screwdriver.
| afandian wrote:
| I'm not sure if you mean the union or intersection?
|
| I searched for ECX and it returns images of multi-bit
| kits. Could you link a photo of what you're referring to?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Several of the combo bit types are covered here:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4WsTfJ-YwbM (start around
| 2m59s, but there's a lot of good content there)
| cyral wrote:
| Search "ECX screw" on Google images, it has some pictures
| of the bits and the screws
| afandian wrote:
| Thanks! That driver bit is crazy.
|
| https://toolguyd.com/milwaukee-ecx-screwdriver-bits/
| function_seven wrote:
| I bought a Klein version of that screwdriver and it's a
| joy to use when wiring up receptacles.
| myself248 wrote:
| I rarely encounter it, but I have a PZ1 driver in my kit at
| all times because NorComp D-sub hoods use it for the cable
| clamp bar screws.
|
| Other than that I can't say I've found PZ in recent memory.
| jccooper wrote:
| I get the bits a lot in multi-bit sets, but the fasteners
| themselves are very rare.
| chromatin wrote:
| Pozidrive super uncommon in the US.
|
| Besides the already-mentioned Ikea, the other most common
| application in the US (best guess) is Ski Bindings, probably
| because most bindings in the US come from European Brands.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| I owned a honda motorcycle from the mid-70s for a while. I have a
| hammer actuated JIS impact driver, as a result: the crank-case
| was held on by 8 of the bloody things.
| blamazon wrote:
| If you ever need to rebuild a Japanese carburetor, buy some nice
| JIS screwdrivers. Thank me later!
| Lammy wrote:
| Also game consoles, laptops, arcade machines, ...
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| I work on small engines/powersport engines. Most of the
| carburetors are Japanese. I love my Vessel JIS screwdriver.
| mberning wrote:
| Vessel has a cool version that you can strike with a hammer
| to loosen tough screws. I think it's called "impacta".
| emsixteen wrote:
| Been looking for JIS screwdrivers which don't cost a fortune
| here in Europe, not had much luck. Don't quite need it before a
| few months from now but it's still frustrating!
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The Japanese company "Vessel" make JIS drivers that are
| generally quite well regarded and not too expensive.
| amelius wrote:
| What I like about the pozidrive is that the tip of the
| screwdriver is not pointy, so it will better fit inside the screw
| head.
| gumby wrote:
| Does DIN 5260 mean Jeep will need to change those taillights?
| jaclaz wrote:
| AFAIK JIS is now becoming obsolete, we have DIN 5260/ISO 8764-1 :
|
| https://rtstools.com/jis-vs-phillips-screwdrivers-and-where-...
| exmadscientist wrote:
| And there is even a third!
|
| The article talks about "normal" versus JIS Phillips drives. But
| "normal" actually comes in two different flavors: US (ANSI) and
| German (DIN/later ISO). ISO Phillips drivers work perfectly on
| ISO Phillips heads and quite well on JIS or ANSI Phillips heads.
| ANSI Phillips drivers work perfectly on ANSI Phillips heads and
| noticeably worse on JIS or ISO Phillips heads.
|
| You probably have not experienced this if your Phillips
| screwdrivers were not made in USA, as virtually every
| manufacturer outside the US used or uses the JIS, DIN, or ISO
| profile for their tools, and those work tolerably on all Phillips
| type screws. (Of course JIS is palpably best on JIS, which is the
| subject of the article.) But if you have older or newer made in
| USA tools (especially Pratt-Read, who recently closed down) or
| fasteners (which probably had to come from some industrial type
| place), you may have noticed that Phillips is even more crap than
| expected. Or you might have noticed that the "foreigners" are
| better at tools if you compared against a good German or Japanese
| screwdriver.
|
| Not really! It's just that there are _three kinds of Phillips
| profile_. It 's _awful_. Death to Phillips, death to Pozidriv
| (too easy to confuse and damage here in the US), death to
| anything that looks like Phillips. Long live Robertson, Hex,
| Torx, and anything with ball end drivers available!
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| For me the Robertson are the best (square heads). All over Canada
| and very common there, never found them in Europe.
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Hex keys are more common here in Europe I would say.
| barbazoo wrote:
| This is where North America got it right 100%. Coming from
| Europe I was used to Phillips and flathead but my eyes were
| opened here in Canada when all screws were basically either the
| #6 or (mostly) the #8 Robertson. Why on earth do I have
| literally 20 different Phillips and maybe 10 different flathead
| bits? And that's finding the right one that doesn't slip and
| destroy the screw is so much work. Robertson ftw.
| [deleted]
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