flat/cross electric screwdrivers

[George Miles]

what are those screwdrivers called for consumer units and some electric sockets which are a mix of cross head and flat?

[g]

[tabbypurr]

pozi-slot

[George Miles]

thanks ..

but why have 3 types? pozi slot, phillips and pozidrive, how annoying

[g]

[charles]

I've always assumed that with pozislot screw it meant you could use either screwdriver.. Is there realy a special screwdriver?

[George Miles]

these ones on ebay say pozi slot but they dont look like it on zooming in

- symbol seems to mean flathead

• symbol seems to mean phillips are there symbols for pozidrive and pozislot

DIYwiki says: "Pozislot heads will accept both pozi and slot screwdrivers."

but one of mine got broken when girlfriend decided to use it somewhere and now i'm messing up pozislot screwheads in electrical sockets...

[george]

PS lots of screw types at:

(but not pozislot)

[g]

[Tricky Dicky]

Most cross-head screws on electrical items are Phillips, my old VDE set only has Phillips or flat although having said that the torque screwdriver VDE set comes with both Phillips and Pozidrive as well as flat.

Richard

[charles]

MK use pozidrive as does Wylex and, ISTR, Hager. Don't know about others

[George Miles]

found them:

C.K T49146 VDE Modulo Screwdriver Set:

Wylex use them: but why oh why oh why ?

[g]

[charles]

I looked at the video - it says PZ2

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd doubt if any UK wiring accessories use Philips head. That's a US thing.

[FMurtz]

Three types ? have another guess,

[Mike Clarke]

Modulo Screwdriver

[TMH]

[Roger Hayter]

I was surprised to discover recently that the standard has nothing to do with the Dutch firm of a similar name, but is an American standard.

[DJC]

So:

1. Someone thinks a that will take any kind of driver is a good idea
2. The resulting design doesn't work well with any driver.
3. Driver designed for screws that are a supposed to be a universal fit but are in fact a poor compromise.

[tabbypurr]

there are loads of types. Ain't life fun. In the soviet union there'd be one type and that would be it. But it would be a poor quality outdated type & everyone would hate it.

NT

[Brian Gaff]

Confusing? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

It gets worse. I needed to open a Sony TV once and eventually found a weird tool that seemed to be a cross between a screwdriver and a socket with a pip in the middle to take the self tapping screws out to merely put in a fuse which had corroded and thus gone O/C. I know many companies feel the whole of the public are stupid but the rar is plastered with warnings about don't open no customer serviceable parts inside, danger high voltage, so really! Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Well I do not know, but I used to use a power supply of the variable kind bought from Tandy. It was in fact very good. Once again an internal fuse died, and it was only then I discovered some nut has in fact riveted the top of the case to the bottom, and I had to drill them out just to put a new fuse inside. There are some strange things and ideas in this world, I have come to accept this as normal. Take the instance of the humble telescopic aerial on a radio. On one very well known model with a G at both ends of its name, after a year or so, the mounting for the aerial would pull out of the set before the full length was untelescoped. On examination, the only thing holding it in was a tiny groove in the aerial, and a sprung clip that was on the outside of its socket in which it rotated. The clip simply did not have enough spring in it to stop the thing slipping over the top of the tiny slot as it wore.

Designers decisions on things are sometimes a little odd, or is it that somebody trying to reduce costs or make health and safety decisions simple intervenes and we end up with the resultant screw, screwdriver or other mechanical part. Come to think of it, My Sub Woofer died one day, and as I now cannot see to fix such things, the chap who did told me that in fact the bridge rectifier had died. He said it was a model which was only rated just above the mean current of the unit, but whenever it was turned on, merely charging up the capacitors overran it, and it was just going to go in the end. He had thus had to fit a bigger one, which of course did not fit the pcb holes and had to be mounted differently. However it has been very good otherwise, and the rest of the design is good. Another case of penny pinching by a person who does not know about surges in current.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

In the old days, the tv factory used self tapping screws and air driven screwdrivers to fit them They were more or less socket hex type heads, but many of the screws used for parts designed to be removed to get PCBs out or to change settings or valves had also a pozi or Philips head inside the hex outside. I even saw some with an ordinary slot which broke through the hex part, but these did tend to fall to bits on insert since the slot compressed and the drive slipped. Even so trying to remove any of these in the filled with a screwdriver was almost impossible due to the torque used to put them in and most engineers had a socket set with them. Perhaps not as safe as an insulated screwdriver around CRTs and capacitors that might still hold a charge, but I never heard of a fatality!

Brian