Calling it a square not a Robinson makes me doubt everything else on this including the ones I know are right.
Same with 6 lobe instead of torx
Torx is a trademarked name, 6 lobe is generic Torx.
Like how everybody calls a tissue a Kleenex.
Or 6 lobe tamper: security torx. Or hexagon: Allan key. Seriously.
Weird, I’ve only ever heard torx and square.
I’d like to go on record as saying six-lobe tamper can die in a fire.
Use a hammer and punch to break off the pin.
Screw drive arguments are my absolute favorite, thank you OP for posting such divisive content!
RIP
Star bit.
That isn’t a thing ~~~~
Same - this will easily be my favorite post of the day, and it’s still early.
A square screw is a Robinson, fyi.
Also the 6 lobe or whatever it’s called in the diagram is usually called a torx.
Robinson ftw though.
There’s some anti-Canadian bias in this chart for sure.
Don’t call Philips after the inventor but Robertson after the shape.
“No! The RED-handled Robbie screwdriver! And hold the light steady” is like half my experiences with my dad. :-D Such a red-foreman.
The first two are screw heads. The rest are mental illnesses.
Phillips slot is very hand tbf, you have a phillips screwdriver? Good you will have good grip, you don’t have one? Good you will still be able to unscrew that
I’ll give you that but all the others are in my opinion completely unnecessary and just cause issues. To me anything other than a Philips head is completely unnecessary and deliberately over complicated.
I like the sentiment that there should be one awesome screw head used everywhere, even if it wouldn’t ever 100% happen.
But phillips head is garbage. I agree with the other reply: torx all day long. Honestly, many of the others are good designs that could likewise handle a lot of torque with less tendency to cam out. But torx has kind of already become that standard, at least around me in the US.
And, in my experience, it’s proven itself in the field. My non-tech hobbies have involved a lot of outdoor construction this year. I used an impact driver to bury big 6" screws all the way into pressure treated lumber about 1,000 times, and then about a thousand other smaller 2.5" - 3.5" outdoor screws. All of them were torx.
And subjectively, the bit engages like a cylindrical gear but without any sharp corners. It seems like it should be easier to clean a screw dropped in the mud. I’ve had to do that more than once, but I didn’t do a comparison, lol.
No way. Torx over Phillips all day
Wonder what the usecase for “H-type” would be
As written by others: Anti-tamper and proof of tamper. Not only can you make it harder to open the case, but you can also intentionally use bits for manufacturing that are non-standard(e.g. leave a little bit of the inner or outer part out) and when you get a device back that has a fully used screw you can tell the customer to fuck right off with their claim.
Especially for medical devices that is sometimes done - and tbf,understandable as there are devices that really really shouldn’t be opened by anyone who is not manufacturer associated.
Anti-tamper.
I’ve seen them used to screw together toilet stalls in public bathrooms. Stops bored crackheads disassembling them.
Anti tamper and devices not intended to be opened. Ive seen them on european power bricks and blocks
For vocalists, if the only tool they have is a tuning fork.
usecase
use-case, right?
What is labelled “flat” here I’ve only ever heard of as “countersunk” and what’s labelled as “slotted” I’ve only ever heard of as “flat head”. Also wtf is “PF”?
I had the same thought! Also I’ve only ever heard “torx” instead of “six lobe” although I’m guessing torx is a brand name.
The one labelled phillips i only ever heard it being calles “cross” and the one labelled pozidriv i only heard it being called “star” but maybe is just my country
Yeah, in the US I’ve only heard “Philips” or occasionally “four way”. We say star here also though, but I think for the “six lobe” iirc
“square” aka Robertson
I thought, for some reason, that Robertson was ostracized from the screw world.
Best drive going hands down. I don’t need a deliberate tourqe out to save my driver, I’m a big boy. Plus it usually just breaks the screw
In the USA maybe.
Everywhere else it’s pretty common.
Fun fact, Henry Ford wanted to use them on his cars, but tried to screw Robertson in the deal. His petulance is the reason that Americans can’t benefit from this perfect design.
I knew there was some reason for it, but I couldn’t get my brain to remember what it was; but this sounds familiar.
damn your area uses dumb names for things then lol
calling a drive type by the head shape, that’s wild
Thanks – little known fact, I time traveled to a hundred years ago to invent these terms.
neat
What is this square?
It is called a Robertson not a square.
Technically Robertson has a taper to it, while square drive doesn’t. Though nobody really differentiates it in common usage.
At least with star drive, while they are the same, pretty much everyone calls them Torx.
It’s called Robertson by proud Canadians, in the US, at least, “square” is common. A square drive also wasn’t invented by Robertson, he just made the tooling for manufacturing the screws to be economical.
deleted by creator
If you’re looking at a guide like this, it’s pretty likely that it’s because you need to know what to put into a search engine to buy the right screwdriver, so it’s absolutely got value to know the name other people are using for a thing and selling it as.
The perimeter of the hole is square. The hole and driver are a trapezoidal prism.
I’m looking for a Six-Lobe Tamper Cheese screw.
Sub to your mcMaster
Phillips/square? You mean pre-half-stripped and here I come with a too small screwdriver to finish the job.
Philips/Square/Slotted (all three combined) is really common in North American electrical. Switches, outlets, breakers; all commonly use them for terminal screws.
Great for lower torque applications; you certainly wouldn’t use them for like a deck/structural screw.
You can torque a Roberson until either the screw, driver, or motor break
Robertson on it’s own, yes. As long as you use the proper size driver before you round out the square.
When you start carving out space for additional drivers though, the screw head becomes much weaker. The combo Robertson/Slotted/Philips screw heads will not standup to the same forces.
Makes sense, I haven’t seen Robby+inferior. What the world needs is a Roberson deep, and a torx shallow, on the same head. Everybody can use one of the best 2 drives without fighting about which is better
i don’t always strip my screws to death but when i do, what the hell do you mean they got the job started for me?
deleted by creator
And if you lack the screwdriver. So long as the head is not the flat style and you have room. Angle grinder/dremel and everything turns into a slot head screw.
Slot screw head you mean. Flat head refers to a head with a shape designed to go into a countersunk hole.
…no it doesn’t. Flat head screwdriver. The head type is called a countersink or self-setting.
Translation error
Anyone know what the heck the Pozidriv/Round Hole combo is for?
Don’t quote me, but if I remember correctly, that is the larger size where the center is more solid like an elliptical half oval that extends nearly to the tip and the fins of the cross are attached. I think it also has the four Pozi minor points at 45 degrees from the cross. It has more of a spline like structure rather than the four pointed cone of a typical Phillips. That tip won’t fit any other Phillips cross. I have only used them a few times, but have had many driver sets that include them. These type are usually tossed in my misc tools drawers because accidentally grabbing them is annoying…
Anti-removal/tamper resistant. The angle of the slots make it really easy to tighten, a fucking bitch to remove.
psychopaths
Tag yourself I’m cheese square
If you’re talking about the piefed tags, we need an auto tagger of some sort. I do not use tags for anything outside of AI fine tuning and training. I do not know the scope of use, and creating a bunch of single occurrence tags is beyond useless like what archive dot org has devolved into. We must have a system like gelbooru/danbooru for tags selection and moderation if that is to be sustainable or useful over time… or I simply do not understand the use scope.
also relevant Bonus xkcd
Torx torx torx torx!
I use exclusively torx or tamper-proof torx for my projects and I love it so much.
I worked as a supervisor where my predecessor thought square/Robertson were superior without listening to the others who were used to torx. I very quickly changed back to using torx.
Would you have let an employee continue to use Roberson if that was their preference?
No. It was a scenic construction shop. Letting one person use a different standard would slow the process during break down or repairs. Having to remind the others to swap bits for one scenic piece or even on the same piece when it’s controlled chaos at best is not worth it.
Yea, I suppose. We just kept swap bits with both in our drivers for the one guy we let used torx or he’d have a fit. Or deliberately snap shafts
Whats the advantage of 1 over the other?
Square/Robertson claims to have less slippage and less prone to rounding out. That’s never held up in my experience. Torx has the same claims and outside of some user error, it’s held up for me.
Square/Robertson bits hold the fastener tightly so they don’t fall off when starting to drive them. Star/Torx doesn’t hold as well.
It also doesn’t let the bit torque out when your driving into something hard like walnut or oak. In my furniture making days we exclusively used Robertson because the ability to stick a screw on the driver, and to know absolutely that you won’t slip out and gouge the workpiece.
Great point!
Hexagons are the bestagons!
Never heard of Phillips the screw before. We call it Kreuzschlitzschraube and the tool for it is a Kreuzschlitzschraubendreher, and I think that’s beautiful.
And who renamed the inbus? This is not a maths class!
But it’s absolutely fascinating that torx on the other hand is here with its generic name.
Although in my opinion there are three slots only: torx, hex and wrong.
deleted by creator
Not pictured here is also ‘JIS’ or Japanese Industry Standard screws.
They are very similar to Philips, but they’re slightly deeper with sharper corners. They have less tendency to ‘cam-out’ and strip the screw head.
Supposedly the camming out thing is actually intentional design in Philips screws, to prevent screw guns from over torquing screws in early automotive/aircraft assembly lines; but there’s not actually evidence to support that according to Wikipedia.
Not pictured here is also ‘JIS’ or Japanese Industry Standard screws.
Yeah I thought it was funny they got the JIS head shape but not the drive.
They are very similar to Philips, but they’re slightly deeper with sharper corners. They have less tendency to ‘cam-out’ and strip the screw head.
Until you try to drive one with a Philips because who the fuck outside of Japan has a JIS driver lying around, then they strip real easy. Ask me how I know.
Why, why, are there so many different cross-shaped screw drives?
who the fuck outside of Japan has a JIS driver lying around, then they strip real easy. Ask me how I know.
Funnily enough, I only know about these because I’ve got one of I Fix-It’s screwdriver sets with 70 driver bits.
I was wondering why there were two sets of what looked like Philips and went looking for info.
Funnily enough, I only know about these because I’ve got one of I Fix-It’s screwdriver sets with 70 driver bits.
I got one of these too, and holy shit is it worth it. Great purchase. I love not having to wonder if I’m going to have the right screwdriver head (generally. Obviously, this thread has taught me that there’s like infinite more types)
If I could just wave a magic wand and make it happen I would change all screw-type fasteners into Torx and just be done with these problems forever.
