Could be that it’s not a Philips but a JIS. I didn’t even know that JIS existed until a couple years ago. The shape is close enough to Philips to mostly work but make it super easy to strip.
Comment on acceptable screws
weeeeum@lemmy.world 8 months agoI work on electronics and woodworking and Phillips are the utter worst of both of them. The thread lock in computers makes them easy to strip when unscrewing. The resistance of driving them into wood makes them guaranteed to strip when screwing. Fuck them.
nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months ago
NaoPb@eviltoast.org 8 months ago
Maybe I’m just being lucky but I’ve never experienced screws stripping anymore since I’ve started getting better tools for myself.
And in woodworking it can also help to pre-drill a hole using your smallest drill, before screwing a screw in. This also prevents the wood from cracking. I’ve also seen wood screws that have some lubrication pre-applied.
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The problem is, when working with electronics, you can have a great screwdriver but it won’t help if the screws in the device are very cheap (and probably partially stripped already from someone opening it previously).
KuraiWolfGaming@pawb.social 8 months ago
I swear I’ve had stuff with stripped screws right from the store.
NaoPb@eviltoast.org 8 months ago
I’ll be honest that I’ve never really experienced problems like that before. I’ve had cheap screws and partially stripped screws. But so far I’ve always been able to open them with the right screwdriver.
But I believe you when you say you did and maybe you have a lot more experience than I do so I’ll respect your opinion.
AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I haven’t had any completely fail yet, but I’ve seen some come worryingly close. I don’t really have all that much experience, but from what I’ve seen it just doesn’t seem like the most reliable design.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.world 8 months ago
The big issue I see with people driving Phillips screws is that they don’t use a large enough driver size. Computer screws for example are Phillips #2 and I’ve never had an issue with them stripping.
weeeeum@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I use the correct driver, I’ll go through my kit to find the best fitting bit. It simply comes down to the fact they are designed to strip to avoid “catastrophic failure”. Plus the fact that companies use intentionally cheap, soft screws, to make repair and service harder. Cough cough zinc screws on a $10,000 iMac (steel screws would have cost 25 cents for 10, zinc like 5 cents for 10, fucking ridiculous).
evergreen@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I read that the thing about them being designed to strip to prevent worse failure is just a myth. Or at least they weren’t originally designed to. It said that the original patent never contained any feature for that. Wouldn’t surprise me though if modern companies do use screws designed to strip to prevent disassembly/repair.
HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I think originally the screws would cause the driver to cam out and stop driving if a certain amount of force is applied but the screws are so soft and cheap that the harder driver damages the screw head when it cams out.
OsaErisXero@kbin.run 8 months ago
I always figured it was intentional but for the other reason: screws soft enough that overtightening can't damage/crack the multi-thousand dollar components, the screw head cores out first.
grue@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s great, but then you can’t get your multi-thousand dollar component unscrewed anyway so what was the point?
frezik@midwest.social 8 months ago
It’s also a design flaw that it’s so easy to use the wrong sized driver and it will sorta work. It might be annoying that you have to have a set of different star drive or hex drive bits, but you’re less likely to strip them.