The Phillips screw was DESIGNED to cam out the driver when too high a torque was applied. It was designed when powered drivers were introduced to the assmbly line and workers were tearing off the heads of screws requiring repair or disposal. If you must work with Phillips head screws, buy best quality bits of the right size and provide a lot of pressure.

The advent of small torque limiters has allowed lots of new screw designs, each with their own design criteria. I like Robertson (square) drive screws but have noticed that many of them are now comming with shallow heads (I am sure that this is less expensive). They were designed to stay on the end of the driver so the assembler could use one hand for the mounting and have the driver and screw together.

The combo square and Phillips was designed to sell in both the US (where everyone has Phillips drivers) and Canada (where Robertson drivers are more common). I have found them the easiest to strip if you don't have a combo driver since you have a lot of thin, unsupported metal.

I like the Torx screw but find it harder to locate in many screw sizes. The JIS is nice, but very hard to work with if you are using Phillips drivers.

Respectfully,

Jerry

Incidentally, McMaster-Carr is a common place to buy these things on the Internet. It's not local and it's not cheap, but the catalog is huge. http://www.mcmaster.com/

McFeely's is also an excellent place for first class screws. Like McMaster (are all these guys Mc's? :-)) they are not local but they usually have excellent prices on good stuff. As always, no affiliation, just a customer.

www.mcfeelys.com

Respectfully,

Jerry

Are you thinking about the Quadrex drive? I went through a 5 lb box of deck screws from Home Depot with that drive without stripping out a single head. Great stuff.

I am very curious about this because I was thinking about switching over to Ridgid mainly for the lifetime batteries. Or what I understood was lifetime batteries. Can they really leave you hanging with a perfectly good drill that they no longer make batteries for?

I can't imagine it's even legal, as it seems a bit like a breach of contract.

Did this happen to you, or to someone you know?

David

It happened to me. I bought a $150 drill on clearance for under $100 and later found it was being phased out for a new series.

The drill was great. Worked like a champ, and so did the batteries, until they got to where they wouldn't hold a charge. I took the batteries back to HD to exchange them. Surprise, they don't carry those anymore.

Being sometimes not stupid, I went to Rigid directly. I had registered the drill with them when I bought it. No luck there either, the batteries were no longer made and they had none in stock.

Is it legal? While not having read every single little bitty word in the guarantee I'm sure it must be.

Won't buy an expensive drill again. Harbor Freight, $20 and when it breaks or won't hold a charge, you don't feel so bad.

Most battery packs of this type that are either NiCad or NiMH are made up of individual cells of AA or C size. you can usually take them apart and replace them yourself.

Ditto on the "lifetime warranty that isn't"

I now have a Ridgid brand drill with 2x dying batteries and a "lifetime replacement" policy that is meaningless.

I only buy hand tools and power equipment from a local home center - where the contractors shop for Dewalt, Hitachi, Bosch and Fein tools.

Expensive but no nonsense.

We've got a store in NJ called Batteries Plus. Not sure if they're nationwide or what, but we give them a lot of business. Whether I need batteries for a drill, a transit laser, a floor scrubber, or a 60 year old bulldozer they've either got 'em, can refurbish them, or can outright make them. They can be a bit expensive, but they also save me a lot of time and money sometimes.

Sometimes they are sub C or sub AA but you can order those from electronics places like digikey or mouser. IIRC both have services where they will join (spot weld) the cells in the config you specify so you don't even have do that, just take apart the old pack and figure out if there are 8 sub C in series and order a set that way and replace yours.