Fun fact: Torx screwdrivers are compatible with Torx Plus screws, but Trox Plus screwdrivers are only compatible with Torx screws that are one size larger

  • Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee
    107·
    4 months ago

    Use torx all the time on not only building sites, but in machinery repair too.

    There’s only one type of torx and I think OP is winding us up :)

    Edit - ha ha oh my fucking god. So it turns out the patent for torx expired in 1990. No change for us in Europe, we’re still mostly using the original design.

    Not so much for the yanks. Textron, the original patent holder, realised it’d be faaaar more profitable to “licence” slightly improved designs and try to phase out the original

    Enjoy your torx my euro friends, and have a giggle at the seppos paying for a fucking screw head lol

    Greed to the point of mental illness 😂

    • renzev@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      201·
      4 months ago

      There’s only one type of torx

      There isn’t. There’s Torx, Torx Plus, and Torx Paralobe. See here for more details: https://www.semblex.com/en/pdf-files/technology-files/torx-paralobe-pdf/ . Plus there’s also the ttap and tamper-resistant variants shown in the meme.

      As other people have mentioned, Torx screwdrivers are forwards compatible with Torx Plus and Torx Paralobe. But the screwdrivers for the newer standards are not backwards compatible with older screws.

      Similarly, Tamper-Resistant Torx screwdrivers can be used on regular Torx screws. But Tamper-Resistant Torx Plus screwdrivers cannot be used on regular Torx Plus screws – it’s a completely different shape!

      If you’re in a professional setting where you order high-quality screws and drivers in bulk directly from a manufacturer, I’d imagine that this isn’t much of an issue. But if you’re a hobbyist or just need to repair something in a domestic setting, the three different torx variants plus the other non-torx hexalobular screws (WA drive, Polydrive, T-Star Plus) can cause quite a bit of confusion. Anecdotally, I have a set of what I thought were really low-quality Torx bits. Turns out, they’re actually good-quality Torx Plus bits that by design don’t fit my Torx screws.