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What kind of bit is needed for this screw?

Original image of screw in yoke

A Phillips bit does not make it and a straight blade either.

(I feel that whoever came up with this idea should be covered in honey and placed in an ant mound.) :-)

enter image description here

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The bit on the right fit that screw the best.

I went looking thru my screw drawers to find a replacement of better design.

Those screws are like fruit flies. They are everywhere.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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fixit7
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    Looks like a flat blade screw driver would work in the slot. The center would probably accept one size of square drive. – Jim Stewart Dec 23 '22 at 00:15
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    No matter what driver bit is used, guys will continue to strip out the screw heads by inappropriate use of power drivers, especially impact drivers. – kreemoweet Nov 14 '23 at 13:35

4 Answers4

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A medium size flat-head screwdriver should work fine.

But the preferred usual choice is a Robertson square drive.

And the absolute best is a combination, such as this Klein:

Klein combination tip screwdriver

I have various Klein tools, I do not have this one, I have no stock in them. This is just the first example I found on Amazon showing this type of tip. My electrician uses the Robertson square drive, and most of the time I just pick up a regular screwdriver.

Some of these are actually designed with a little extra slot perpendicular to the main slot, so that a Phillips will work to a reasonable degree, but the one you pictured here does not appear to have that.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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    The tip shown on the screwdriver, looks more like a Torx drive. – crip659 Dec 23 '22 at 00:21
  • OPs? Or the Klein? The Klein is hard to tell from the picture of the screwdriver, but the symbol with #1 #2 in the lower left is what the tip is actually supposed to look like, which is pretty standard for electrical and, I think, matches OP's picture. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Dec 23 '22 at 00:23
  • The screwdriver. Symbol it is suppose to fit looks like robertson/square/flat. Might be a bad looking picture, but if I saw that, torx comes to mind. – crip659 Dec 23 '22 at 00:31
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    I added some more clear pictures. – fixit7 Dec 23 '22 at 03:07
  • Add the original picture back in - it provides needed context. But in any case, to me it looks like a Robertson + flat combination chewed up by using a Phillips. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Dec 23 '22 at 03:26
  • So does anyone know what tool it would take? Thanks. – fixit7 Dec 23 '22 at 04:11
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    Based on the original image which shows this as a typical yoke screw, the Klein tool (or similar from other manufacturers) which is a *combination* Robertson or square + flat is the correct tool for the job. Probably #2, but I'm not sure - they often come as a set of #1 and #2 anyway. Either order something off Amazon or take one of the screws to your local hardware store or Home Depot/Lowes/etc. and you can try a combination screwdriver bit in the store to make sure it is the right thing. Except be warned that nothing will fit 100% once the square part gets messed up. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Dec 23 '22 at 04:25
  • The tip in the picture still looks an awful lot like a Torx to me as well. I wonder if whoever made the image just used a photo of the wrong tip by mistake. (It's hard to tell since it's also pretty badly pixelated.) The other pictures on the Amazon page, like [this one](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5131D4KQH+L._SL1000_.jpg), show the tip much more clearly. – Ilmari Karonen Dec 23 '22 at 12:29
  • @IlmariKaronen lookup pictures of "ECX bit" on some image search. They look just like this. They have the same sort of ridges (from a distance) as a trox would. – Brad Dec 23 '22 at 14:20
  • @Brad: I did, and they do look similar from a distance. But the one in the picture above still looks like a Torx to me — it pretty clearly has six symmetrical ridges, not two big and two small ones. Of course we're arguing over a handful of pixels in a blurry photo, so it's impossible to be sure. But I still think it's more likely that the person who composed that image just picked the wrong product photo out of what was probably a big pile of nearly identical looking pictures of screwdrivers and didn't notice the mistake because of the similarity. – Ilmari Karonen Dec 23 '22 at 15:54
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    … Actually, I'm now pretty _certain_ that it's a Torx, since I did a Google reverse image search and found [this image](https://www.kleintools.com/sites/all/product_assets/catalog_imagery/klein/19555_callout1.jpg) that clearly shows _the exact same product photo_ — slightly rotated but otherwise identical down to the reflections on the shaft — but calls it a Torx. I guess whoever made the image also got confused by the similarity and picked the wrong product photo. – Ilmari Karonen Dec 23 '22 at 15:55
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    @IlmariKaronen Quite possible you are correct about that. Key is the image in the lower left - that shows the actual bit style. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Dec 23 '22 at 15:55
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    Image or not, ecx is not the same as torx. – Aloysius Defenestrate Dec 23 '22 at 19:39
  • I will say that I recently purchased the exact Klein driver set mentioned in this answer (without ever having seen this answer), and that these drivers are 100% correct for screws used in US/NEC electrical devices! They are a perfect fit and will even do a pretty good job of tightening/loosening screws that have been chewed up by inappropriate use of a Phillips driver. Now, I need to find a set of bits for _careful_ use in my impact driver/torque screwdriver, because the set I found for that is _not_ quite right... – FreeMan Nov 14 '23 at 14:05
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That screw will take either a flat blade or a robertson(think #2), (American square) screwdriver.

If flat blade does not work then you need a larger one.

Robertson's were invented to prevent flats from cutting screw driver's hands when they slipped.

crip659
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Pretty sure its called an ECX bit. It fits perfectly. However, it is a robertson in the center and you could use that instead and it works just as well.

Huy Tran
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Flat, Phillips, square. Use the square, probably a number one which is the small one.

Sparks McGee
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