Where my iT’s A fEaTuRe homeys at?
::: spoiler Spoiler Probably at the hardware store picking up more Phillips head screws. :::
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If I were a senator, I would make the Torx head a mandatory industry standard, and phase out Philips and proprietary screws in commercial products over ten years. Furthermore, introduce a mandatory minimum quality material to be used in its manufacture so it doesn't rust or corrode.
i love how the head in the before picture is ALREADY stripped
And half the time it came from the factory like that.
If it comes from the factory with such pronounced corners, chances are its a Phillips/Square drive combo. In which case you can use a square drive bit which will drive it without slipping (IIRC square drive has similarly high torque before cam-out as torx). There are a ton of different kinds of screw drives though, the phillips-adjacent ones are under cruciform here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
How in the world does such a comprehensive article not include JIS? It looks like it was once included but then it was removed due to poor citations. Wtf why was it not added back? It is very distinct from Philips and if you use a Philips driver on a JIS screw, it strips the shit out of it.
JIS screws are denoted by a small dimple in one of the corners of the + on the screw.
Stripped for Your pleasure!
I do. proof: that is my backyard
Looks like a dystopia to me, can't get anywhere by foot and all the cars look like the same general design
How is that any different from today?
in the US, no different
there's literally someone walking in the pic
Walking to a car
If it makes you feel any better, the Phillips head was designed specifically to strip out so assembly line workers wouldn't over-torque them. It is stupid that they are the default in so many things when we have things like torx that are infinitely better.
From Wikipedia:
Huh...well guess I was wrong. Thanks for the info!
Acknowledging own error and thanking the counterparty for pointing it out with no sign of spite? Fucking witchcraft! How do I acquire this power?
I mean you just gotta try it I guess. You know what's more fun that being right? Learning something and then being right.
Well, when you're wrong a lot you get plenty of practice.
You absolute legend.
Philips shape is the next step up from a flat head. Its just a double flat head sort of. It self centers and only requires 2 tooling motions if they are being ground.
The dont overtighten thing has always seemed like a weird misunderstanding that all bit types could be designed to do that.
It wasn't an intentional feature. But, when they realized it happened it became a feature that they thought was useful.
There are a lot of things like that, where something has a design quirk that people come to rely on. The quirk is so useful that people assume it was designed to work that way intentionally, but sometimes it was just coincidence.
Sounds like Hyrum's Law.
Edit someone linked this post from tool manufacturer tekton saying much of what I described may be popular misunderstanding, it may be worth taking this info with serval grains of salt https://www.tekton.com/blog/jis-vs-phillips-screwdriver-tip-geometry-and-fastener-compatibility?slug=jis-vs-phillips-screwdriver-tip-geometry-and-fastener-compatibility
If you like Philips aside from that feature (being self-centering is nice sometimes), JIS the Japanese industrial standard is basically the same design but its not intended to cam out, stripping the fastner
To my understanding you can safely use a JIS bit with a Philips fastner to reduce likelihood you strip it. But you ideally shouldn't use a Philips bit to turn a JIS screw. You can identify a JIS fastner by a little dimple in the corner by the plus shaped indentation
I'm having trouble picking out the differences beyond the dimple. What makes it harder to strip?
The geometry of the area the bit slots into is different
I believe the difference is that the Philips bit is kind of a star shape, where the blades and the slots that fit together are widest at the middle where they converge, and narrow towards the outside, creating a wedge that ramps the bit out of the fastner. And with JIS they don't narrow, creating a simpler plus shape that functions like two flatheads intersecting with eachother, but with a pointed tip so its self centering
The dot is there to communicate which kind it is since they look a lot like Philips. I believe thats also why posidrive has the little lines- so you can tell the difference. No idea what posidrive is about, maybe its similar 🤷🏻♂️
Edit, I was able to find some diagrams attempting to show the geometry differences (sorry, the side depicting each geometry swaps between the two pictures)
I appreciate it. That was what I suspected, but it's so hard to tell from just a picture.
Note that according to hardware manufacturer Tekton, the differences are smaller than you think and especially the diagrams are highly misleading as they actually compare PH2 and PH0.
Just about the only major difference is the thread pitch and that is only different in JIS screws if they don't have the dot.
Can you elaborate on what comparing PH1 and PH0 means?
The diagram is not comparing between two standards but between two sizes within the same standard. Philips size 0 (PH0) has a slightly different shape than Philips size 1 (PH1) and up.
Jeez... it's like Phillips is DESIGNED to strip. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE IT LIKE THAT?
Someone said in another comment it's designed to cam out, not necessarily strip, in order to prevent over-tightening. Someone else replied that wikipedia says there's no evidence of that though.
https://lemmy.zip/comment/27597829
And TIL that the crappy Philips screw was actually this pozidriv one. I hate it. But at least now I know I just don't have the right tool to use it.
Posidrive bits being mixed in with Phillips also helps strip out a lot of Phillips fasteners
That's what op meant by "iT's A fEaTuRe"
Phillips is bad enough to start with, but then they started making Pozidriv, which looks almost identical but isn't actually compatible - making it even more likely to tear out.
I wonder why Canada seems to be the only country in the world that understands Robertson screw head supremacy?
There's a lot of history around the Robertson and Philips screw heads back when assembly lines were becoming a thing.
tldr: licensing is why Robertson didn't spread to the US.
Robertsons are the Pinnacle screwhead. Torx and hex are also acceptable
Not Hex, I've stripped those a few times.
Yeah, hex is only a few obtuse angles away from being a circle. And that means it strips into a circle surprisingly easily.
When a hex goes circle it's time to break out the triple squares and a hammer! Poor man's extract set lmfao
I've found a couple that just didn't seem to be snug enough from the start. Like 6 hex screws on this bike trailer thing. 5 of them fit a 6mm hex wrench perfectly, but on one it just spins and the next size up was too big. Either it wasn't to spec or it warped at some point or something. I think other fastner heads would be more forgiving in this regard.
Robertson wanted to be paid for his good design. Henry Ford didn't want to pay, even if it was a tiny amount.
Ford was willing to use an inferior screw design that could cause production issues rather than pay a license to use the superior design. And, even though the patent expired a long time ago, these decisions have momentum.
I would bet that Torx is more popular than Robertson even though it's a much newer design. Is it a better design? To me, Robertson seems to have the edge when it comes to simplicity, but Torx could be better for industrial applications because multiple lobes that have a surface perpendicular to the direction of torque probably gives it more control. Also, thanks to Ikea, I'd bet that hex-head bolts are incredibly common. They share most of the benefits of Robertson. I suspect they're a little less efficient though because the closer you are to a circle shape, the less the faces of the screwdriver tip align with the direction of torque. I wonder if there are advantages of hex over square, since you see hex so much more often.
I’ve learned recently, by buying pozi head screwdrivers, that they’re not so bad. But it is unnecessary. Torx or Robertson please.
I've seen these in Australia but they're not popular. Until a moment ago I thought they were for some specific arcane application.
Get a drill!! You can do this twice as fast with half the effort
Better make it an impact driver, just to be sure.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure phillips head originated for use in screwable rivets and large screws on automobiles where it was implied that the screw action was a one time deal using your hydraulic/pneumatic screw gun on the assembly line.
If you were to unscrew it, you probably should be using a fresh screwed rivet to replace it.
Of course those days are long gone because of superior non screwed riveting and pretty much everything removable in automotive being replaced by hex for the same reason of phillips being easily strippable.
The standard just stuck around because it was cheap.
Phillips in electronics is what needs to die. They're always stupidly small and strip so easily
Yes, the design is meant to effectively have a torque limit where the driver will cam out before the screw strips.
I think a lot of people who strip screws do so because no one told them that Phillips and Posidriv are different and incompatible
They literally don't teach it at school and I'm pretty sure my grandpa couldn't tell the difference either so quite literally nobody taught me until I got a screwdriver kit that had both PH and PZ.
Even worse is JIS, where it seems that its explicit and singular goal was to make a screw that would be instantly obliterated the moment a Phillips driver touched it. Fun fact, JIS drivers work far better on Phillips than Phillips drivers do, and I've yet to strip one since using JIS drivers almost exclusively
I learned about JIS this year when I got my first motorcycle. Honestly maddening how similar they look.
Screws were stripped into fucking circles by the person who tried to fuck with one part before me.
I've not tried to use a JIS screwdriver on a Philips head, but thanks for the tip!
Is that what the PZ means, Posidriv?
It's spelled with a z ("Pozidriv"), hence this short form.
Star drive and Torx are so much better I can't believe they haven't taken over the whole world
Amen brother!
And square drive!
just bought a bike from an american dude up here in Canada and I don't think he owned a metric hex key set, judging by how every other bolt is stripped to fuck
I'd ask how, but I bought my nephew his first set of tools for his 25th birthday. He doesn't exactly know how to use them (I'd gladly teach if I lived closer) but none of his blood relatives are mechanically inclined.
Still, better to have a plunger and not need one than to need a plunger and not have one.
Just bought a bike from a Vietnamese dude here in Vietnam and Holy shit who the fuck thought it was a good idea to put steel Philipshead screws into soft aluminum.
Unrelated, but making both metric and imperial hex was a mistake.
Edit: Turns out everyone in vietnam intentionally replaces JIS with philipshead because its easier to find.
Don't feel bad, it's the PH design who's at fault. For some reason, someone decided PH should have tapered flanks, so that the bit has a constant tendency to slip out of the screw unless you push the bit into it with absurd amounts of force.
edit: 5. There are different Philips sizes; any Philips will fit in any equal or larger plus-sized hole, but barely engage and both strip the screw and the driver.
I had honestly never even considered this possibility...
No doubt, but in my own amateurish experience, the only way I can deal with PH is by using a power tool at very low speed while also applying pressure on the screw to prevent slippage (ideally one that also lets you set the torque).
The cam out is a feature not a bug for when these were invented. They were made well before we had electric torque control cheaply and easily, so assembly lines developed Phillips to control torque using the driver and fastener. It's literally designed to cam out on its own at a given torque setting.
AFAIK, this is a myth. The original patents don't include the tapering, and someone else in the comments quoted the relevant parts from Wikipedia.
Cam out source
You're right it wasn't originally designed for it but later patents and iterations on the Phillips head driver specifically designed it in which is where I think the confusion comes from. I had always heard it was originally designed that way but I guess not.
The one on the right is actually "Pozidriv" (PZ), which is a little better than regular Phillips at least.
You're right, I should've mentioned that PH is the one on the left. The pic is from a Wikipedia article that compares PH with PZ.
And this is why I buy torx acres for anything I’m building myself. Unfortunately most premade things I buy have this crappy screw type.
Phillips is meant to slip, on purpose. It is designed so factory workers in the past, who used manual drives, could quickly assemble things without over torquing the screws. Just go firm and continuous until the thing slips, then switch to the next step, if you have to use force to avoid slip, you are doing too much. It was simple and easy. Pozidrivs are meant to withstand and impart way much more torque, but, they are supposed to be used with a torque limited electric drive. So assemblers, and even robots, can do the job fast and to exact torque specifications. The result is that people use PZ drives on PH screws and immediately obliterate them, because the drive has too much grip. While the PD drive fits PZ screws but won't grip and will slip much more, causing a ton of damage to both screw and drive. It is not entirely the material's fault. Using the wrong drive or choosing the wrong screw head is what usually leads to failures.
The screws included with some items are such pot metal rubbish that they practically strip themselves out. I bought a few assorted packs of hex head cap screws and torx head wood screws so I can replace the included screws when they actually matter.
I recently got my first pocket hole jig. Pocket hole screws are, for whatever reason, square drive. They're perfect for wood, I luv them.
you know, my wife had the same look on our honeymoon.
Because you kept using the same hole for everything? 🤔
well I only have two holes and the stuff that fits in one won't fit in the other.
Not with that attitude.
Robertson drive thank you very much, that’s the pride of Canada right there.
Mmmmm, this will go splendidly with my Maple Syrup and Poutine!
I've got my problems with Canada, but y'all sure know how to screw.
Nah I'm buying hex screws/bolts or flathead ones. It is a feature, the feature is: the screw sucks.
Now see flathead is number two on my list of fasteners designed by dark forces.
It's even worse than Philips for power tools.
Hex isn't much better in my experience. Torx is great though.
Small hex fucking sucks, but cheap tools don't help either
Neither does loctite
I'm sticking with Robertson where I can. It's so much better
Best suggestion I have is to buy yourself a decent screwdriver or driver bits, then when it starts getting worn and slipping easily throw the bit/driver away and use a new one. You can get away with using a worn Phillips driver for a long time past it's prime but you're just making life hard for yourself by doing this.
Also make sure you're using the correct size and type of bit, I've seen plenty of people struggling with Phillips heads because they're doing something like using a ph1 bit on a ph2 screw or using a pozidrive bit on a Phillips head.
So many people don't even know Pozidriv exists, even in technical jobs. It keeps surprising me.
Some of those electric screwdrivers have torque settings. I don't know how accurate they are (if I was doing an engine, first I'd be using a drill not a screwdriver second I'd actually take the time to calibrate it if I was working on something important) but I haven't stripped out a screw with that driver yet.
Fucking love electric screwdrivers. They make shit a lot easier most of the time.
Get a Step Bit. Then drill into the screw head until it pops off. I deal with contractors that over torque bolts on a regular basis.
Help me step-bit, I'm stuck and stripped!
Do they make those in a reverse direction so once it gets a bite it can just unscrew?
You can get screw removing bits, which are basically that.
No, this is not the intended use for this type of bit.
Now it's time to turn it into a flathead screw with a dremel!
Torx 25 is my favorite
screw that
This physically hurts to look at.
Additional reading about the effectiveness of different bit types.
https://youtu.be/og9tiGEI3Gk
That's not reading, that's a video >:c
No but really if you have an article or something that contains similar info that would be awesome!
Unfortunately I do not. Project Farm and TTC are the best long form tool reviewers right now. Consumer Reports might be more your speed, but I think videos allow for more independence since it's a more profitable medium. These video channels are able to spend thousands per video because they're family friendly and rack up hundreds of thousands of views daily.
No worries, I appreciate the honesty. Just means I'll have to look later. Thanks!
I had this happen to me installing a PC fan. I don't think I was able to get that screw in fully because of it.
Flathead gang for life phillips can kick sand
You found one that is objectively worse than Phillips. (Because it's just the worst, period.)
The only one worse than Phillips, even.
How are they worse? I've so rarely dealt with them that idk
The screwdriver slips out of the side of the screw as you turn it. They can be extremely frustrating.
Ah, I have only ever interacted with them with things that were way bigger than the screw. Which leads into the advantage for people who don't interact with them often: anything flat fits, so if you have a knife, coin, nail file, etc. you can still unscrew them
OTH, you can make a flathead screw with a rod, a hammer, and a hacksaw.
At that point, make a second groove for a cross head and saw the tip off a Philips driver. That way, it doesn't cam out easily or slide out the side.
I think Phillips would looks weird on an outlet cover plate, and the aesthetics of a flathead look the best. But for sure everywhere else it's the worst screw head type
I think Phillips would look fine, especially if it's painted like those screws always are. And there are still other solutions, for example square drive (the bits are rare, but would be easy enough to just sell next to the plates if it became popular)
If i never see another flathead screw for the rest of my life ill die a happy sparky
Yea what’s with flatheads being the default finish screw on panel covers?
I don't know what monster decided that but it makes all electrical outlet work 5x more frustrating!
Cheap, easy to clean, only gets opened like once every ten years, cheap and takes paint well.
Also cheap
I think you forgot to mention that it's cheap
Nah, they never mentioned how cheap it was, someone would have noticed
And a kid can easly open it with whatever they have around!
No seriously, it never happened to anyone i know, but i am sure some kid, somewhere opened it using some random shit they found around and made a disaster
I have impact-driven thousands of screws into wood in my back yard in the past 18 months. Over 1,000 of them were 6" (15cm) big guys, along with tons of 2.5" (~6cm) and 3.5" (9cm).
Every last one was Torx / hexalobular / 6-point. When I bought hardware that came with free phillips head screws, I threw that shit away and used my own.
The "feature" that philips head brings to the table makes it worse for just about every use case other than "I own exactly one screwdriver and never want to get another one."
Torx doesn't HAVE to be the alternative. There are many good screw designs out there. It's just that where I live, that's the non-philips choice that dominates the market. Every store has a variety of choices for torx-driven construction screws.
In Canada it's Robertson for construction which is literally a square hole. It works phenomenally well in my opinion especially with drills with torque cutoffs. The only benefit of Phillips or posidrive is the automatic cam-out to control torque, which we don't need anymore with modern tools.
PH itself is not even that terrible - but companies use the cheapest metal you can find to make the worst possible screws with it
Iirc it was indeed designed to be terrible back in the day to protect bits on machines by camming out.
Using well made screwdriver bits, replacing them when worn. Never had a ph head stripped since I started doing that. I've more Robertsons stripped in that time. In fact I've grown to dislike Robertson.