Had to change the opening side on a fridge yesterday.
Simple enough, but the 8 screws holding the hinges were all Torx head.
The only reasons I can think of for using Torx head is (a) if you need high tightening torque or (b) if you don't want Joe Public removing them.
Neither of which applies to a fridge door.
(c) the manufacturer was offered the Torx screws at a price which worked out a penny per fridge less than Pozi etc?
You want it assembled by robots so don't want the fastener to cam-out when you whiz it in at 12,000 RPM to reduce the robots time to assemble.
Had to change the opening side on a fridge yesterday.
I had the same problem a couple of weeks ago. Replacing the filter in a vacuumed cleaner required a weird bit for the two screws holding it in. Why?
Mike
You should be so lucky. Last time I had to do that there were four different types and sizes of screws including torx and cross-head.
More likely it's a simple question of finding that torx screws stick to power assembly-line screwdrivers better and are therefore de facto a choice for assembly work.
(c) they are machine inserted on a production line. That's what Torx screws were designed for.
They are much easier to hold using a drill etc. It could be they are a form of self tapper - even although they appear to have a normal thread.
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk:
Out Pound Shop sells Torx bits. Other places sell better ones. Time to tool up!
What's the story behind those stupid triangular headed ones......
Someone needed to use my old security torx driver last week I hadn't used that since taking apart Mac pluses .
The many different types of screw heads and type do my head in. I have loads of bits but never one that fits properly! It would be lovely to go back to one type of cross head and slotted, but it will never happen.
Treat yourself :-)
Dunno, but the power cord on the wife's hairdryer split this morning ('Oh look, there are sparks coming from this'!) and I was looking at how to open it and fix. That has triangular-headed screws buried in quite deep narow holes, so the only driver I have that would fit (an interchangeable set) won't reach into the hole.
I assume these screws are designed to make it hard for ordinary punters to get into the body and fix it.
That might just be a "useful side effect" of designing the mouldings to allow the same short (cheaper) screws to be used all round. It seems to be a 'chicken and egg' conundrum[1] in that I can't make up my mind as to which is the intended effect and which is the "useful side effect".
[1] Eveolutionary biolgists have determined that the correct answer is that it was 'The Egg' that came first.
It bleeding obvious that eggs have been around for millions of years before chickens, unless you believe in creation when they all appeared at the same time.
No triangular ones in that set. Anyway most of those bits are usually useless as they don;t fit anything v ery well. I brought a number of toolkits last year as I was searching for a sutable set for the students and we would need to be about 200 of them and 100 each year as an ongoing spend.
It does seem to be that those triangle ones are for products they don't wan t you to take apart, so similar to Torx but differnt from security torx.
Yes I always thought that, and I'm pretty dam sure that if a tree falls in a forest and no ones there to hear it it still makes a sound.
Why would that be a problem for toddlers plastic play toy pop-up toaster? That had the base fixed with half a dozen or so triangular socket screws.
I've obviously come across 'em before as I have a longish broken hex drive bit that I've ground down to a triangle tip...
If you don't want it taken apart why use a screw that someone can make a screwdriver that can remove it ? Why not use a secrity screw or a torx even a hex as kids are unlikely to have a hex driver to hand.
I'm just wondering what advaintage these triangular heads have over other types.
Isn't the question why people cling to old Phillips screws when there's something so much more efficient available?
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