1/8 inch drive bits

I was at Sear's the other day doing some hardware shopping when I come across a cheap "General Tool" micro power driver. For $20 bucks I thought it to be a good toy to play with.

I then made a stop over at Walmarts and happen to be in the Tool section and saw a small sized bit set with a lot of different styles etc. So I got that.

It wasn't until later, I notice these small driver bits which are 3/16 from Walmart, didn't fit the micro power screw driver I got from Sears. After a little more reading on the package I noticed they were 1/8 drivers, not 3/16 as I had thought at first glance in the Sear's store..

All is not lost however. I had the machinist at work bring down the size of the extension option in the 3/16 set to the 1/8 size and I can now use the 3/16 bits in the 1/8 micro power screw driver.

I wasn't aware of 1/8 driver bits? Are these a standard or some fly by night product ? I don't seem to find tomany hits on the web concerning this.

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie
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I wasn't aware of either 3/16 or 1/8... but I always thought the metric standard hex bit is 4mm hex and this is in the Wera and other no-name ("GearWrench", "AnytimeTools") sets at Sears.

Tim.

Reply to
Tim Shoppa

Micro assembly in china and Taiwan is how it got here. Worked its way over here. I bought a driver at Harbor Freight 2 years ago this way.

All the bits are for fine assembly work, and some of the "phillips" drivers do not match any of the numeric sizing standards, so all those screws in all those Japanese cameras are where you find the sizes for that, and they started it too.

Reply to
SoothSayer
[about small-hex drive for screwdriver bits]
5mm = 0.19685" 3/16" = 0.1875" 4mm = 0.15748"

So, 5mm is close enough to be mistaken for 3/16"; a 3/16" driver will be over the nominal size, often enough to handle a 5mm item.

My bits in a set (Task Force, from Lowe's I think) are 0.157 or less (0.1556 minimum) My bits in a Victorinox product (Swiss army knife style) are a known nominal

4mm.
Reply to
whit3rd

"Different" here may mean METRIC sizes..

Reply to
Robert Baer

Are the "Phillips" drivers actually Phillips, or Pozidriv/Supadriv?

Phillips are uncommon outside the USA. Europe and the Far East mainly use Pozidriv.

The profiles are very different, included angle,etc. As a rule of thumb, you can get away with a Pozidriv driver in a Phillips screw, but a Phillips driver will easily "cam out" of a Pozidriv screw, probably damaging it.

You really need both.

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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
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Reply to
Fred Abse

Really? That's worth knowing (I'd never noticed that)

The Philips is actually *designed* with that feature in mind! You can predict, for a given applied torque and thrust force, whether or not the driver will cam out (or the fastener head sheer off).

E.g., Reed & Prince fasteners (and drivers) will allow you to exert more torque before the driver disengages from the screw (usually catastrophically :> ).

As a bit of trivia, a typical adult male can sheer the tip off a (well made) #0 and #1 Phililps (assuming you can keep the tip engaged in the fastener at those torque levels and not mangle the fastener itself!). Some can possibly do this for a #2, as well! (I believe you have to be Simian to tackle a #3! :> )

Reply to
Don Y

minimum)

4mm.

if you want a closer look at it..

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I guess I could look for metric driver bits.

I think that would fall into a 3mm driver shank.

Jamie

Reply to
Jamie

Except We invented it, and THEN the other "design variants" followed.

Back then folks had time to 'play' with 'style' and the like.

I found a bit of a listing:

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For large screws, sure.

But for all these miniature sizes... I doubt they went through the trouble to stamp a precision pozi-driv head onto them tiny screws.

More likely "Fearson" type.

Reply to
SoothSayer

The whole reason they were designed is so they would cam out. You got it right on the money!

Assemblers were over-torquing their slotted fasteners in some instances. The engineers came up with this and voilà!

Oddly, they can actually have MORE torque applied to them now, and some (many) are designed to get huge torqueing (seat belt tie down screw) as a part of their goal. I would not trust my seat belt to a hand tightened slotted screw.

Reply to
SoothSayer

Or buy it at Sears, and break it on the first screw in a computer case.

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I think Sears has turned around with their quality. I resorted to going into Sears the other day, after probably 30 years, to get some peg board hangers I couldn't find elsewhere.

I looked around their tool department and was astonished at their tool offerings. ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Reply to
Jim Thompson

At the amount of tools or at the lack thereof?

Reply to
SoothSayer

It's been over a decade since I shopped there. That screwdriver was a replacement for a very old & worn Craftsman #2 and it broke before the first 6-32 screw broke loose on a computer case. I removed that screw with a no name #2 that probably came from China, and still have it. I blew a whole 25 cents on it, new at the short lived Wal-Mart surplus stores that were called Bud's Place.

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Why not? It's as easy to make cold heading dies to the right profile as the wrong one.

It's called standards compliance.

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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
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Reply to
Fred Abse

Yes,but the capture/hold reasons for the design are not needed at those micro realms. Bigger screws sure.The little screwdrivers I have for tiny stuff are none for the pozidriv series muster.

Reply to
SoothSayer

They certainly are needed for automated assembly.

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"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence 
over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
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Reply to
Fred Abse

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