65% of you use a Philip screwdriver for
most of your electrical work around the
house I'm here to tell you there are
much better options and in fact I found
one option here with all of the testing
I've done that is the absolute Champion
but I think you're going to be pretty
surprised at what I discovered in an
effort to discover what you typically
use as a screwdriver when doing
electrical work I conducted a poll on my
channel and I put the four different
main options on there and slotted or
Flathead came in with 177% usage and I'm
very curious to see what this is going
to look like 5 years from now if this
will change or adjust but more on that
one in just a second Phillips came in at
65% like I'd mentioned and then
Robertson or Square Drive represented 8%
of you users 9% or the final bit was ECX
or combination tips we're going to talk
all about those because I ordered some
pretty funky ones from around the world
to try to see if those were the best
ones let's start by covering the old
trusty Flathead or slotted screwdriver
here I actually can't stand Flathead I
think they're they should go away in my
opinion I don't see any good use for
them and 17% of you at least totally
disagree with that and I'm okay with
that I understand that I have a theory I
think that a lot of people are using
Flathead because that's what they grew
up with or slotted they're used to it
they're accustomed to it I know that it
gives you good torque but let's talk
about some pros and cons here slotted
screws basically you do get good torque
if you're using the right size and by
the way it's not a small size this is
the proper size that you should be using
when you're working work with electrical
screws this is meant to fill up that
entire slot that goes across the face of
it if we go back a little ways though we
can see that pretty much all outlets and
electrical work used to use slotted
screwdrivers and that's just what it was
all of these other ones that we've had
have really come and evolved from that
slotted that we originally started with
it's no wonder so many people still use
a slotted screwdriver for electrical
work but personally if I woke up
tomorrow and slotted screwdrivers and
slotted screws had vanished from the
planet I would be perfectly happy with
that I don't ever need to see them again
that said look at these there's no
getting around it our plate covers for
Outlets light switches and everything
else pretty much all still use these
little screws with a slotted screwdriver
screw on them you just can't not use
these you've got to carry these around
if you're going to do any sort of finish
work and a lot of times even a light
fixture for example or something that
you're doing we'll use that let's take a
look at the combination screw that we're
now seeing in pretty much any electrical
device around the home today time for a
nerd confession here I actually went out
and bought this sweet macro lens because
I wanted to show you super close exactly
what we're dealing with here and when it
comes to the connection that the driver
makes to the screw it really helps if
you can see it up close and personal and
so I got this lens that allows me to get
super close in it's like near
microscopic nury level and it's pretty
awesome so hopefully that helps you to
see what we're talking about here this
combination screw as you can see has
four different types of drivers it can
work with we have the traditional
slotted we have the Phillips we have a
square or Robertson Drive and then it
can work with any of the combinations
now when I say combination drivers I'm
talking about any combination and
they're all out there I've actually got
right in front of me and I've tested
I've got a combination of a Phillips and
a square drive put together we've got a
slotted and a square drive and we even
have a slotted and a Phillips put
together so we're going to try all these
out I'll show you how they work but
really this screw is meant to work with
any of those it's a fairly soft metal
and you're going to find it in two
different sizes the first size is the
number one square drive and that's
what's used in outlets and in light
switches it's used for anything that
you're going to be doing with that there
are other places you'll find it but
these are the most common the second is
the number two and that's going to be
used with anything in your electrical
panel the screws on the outside of the
panel your bus bars your circuit
breakers anything like that is going to
use a number two Robertson or a number
two square drive conveniently the
Phillips driver actually uses a number
two for all of these whether it's in the
panel on the outlets or receptacles
light switches it's a number two across
the board so I think that plays in
somewhat to the fact that we use
Phillips so frequently for electrical
work because you can use it pretty much
anywhere and you don't have to change
out your driver I should probably
mention before we go any further that
I'm always looking at an insulated
screwdriver if I can find one sometimes
they're just not available and we'll
talk more about about that but basically
this whole purpose of an insulated
screwdriver is to reduce the risk of
electrical shock so check out the labels
find out what their specs are and
anytime you can use insulated I'd highly
encourage you to use it just to add that
extra layer of safety but also turn that
power off I mentioned before that the
Phillips is not necessarily your best
bet and I stand by that for a couple of
reasons first of all there are some good
things about it and one of them is just
the fact that it's every 90° you can
insert this it's really easy to work
with and it's pretty Universal if you've
got a number two Phillips you can use it
with all different kinds of screws like
I said in an outlet or recepticle as
well as in a panel so that's pretty
awesome but what happens is if you don't
have a high quality one or if you've got
an older one what's going to happen is
these little wings on the four sides
start to get a little bit worn down and
as that happens you just lose all of
your leverage it just doesn't turn very
well the same thing can happen with the
screw itself if the screw itself doesn't
have a good grip on there for those tiny
little wings then you don't a lot to
hold on to and therefore you're not
going to get good leverage and no torque
really so that's really the downside
that said if you do buy a decent quality
screwdriver with a hardened steel tip
that's going to do better but you're
still going to run the risk of having
too soft of a screw to work with and I
still don't think it's going to give you
the torque and the fit that you're going
to get with some of the other ones we'll
talk about in just a moment so what
about Robertson Robertson or Square
Drive has a couple of huge advantages
number one this in my opinion gives the
best fit into the pocket of this screw
this combination screw out of anything
that I've tested here it does a pretty
fantastic job with that secondly just
like the Phillips every 90° you can
insert it so that makes it really easy
to not mess up it's fast to work with
you don't have to spend a lot of time
searching for that alignment just right
and it's just gives you good grip and
good torque so all around I find that
the the Robertson here is really a
pretty fantastic option and there's a
reason if you look in the comments of my
poll anybody from is like why would you
use anything but a Robertson and why
does any other country even have other
options when the Robertson is the way to
go so obviously there's a lot of
Canadian Pride there Robertson is from
Canada um the actually uh patent for
this came originally from there but this
is a pretty great option and a lot of
people have told me though that these
tend to cam out or slip and again I'm
going to circle back to that one in just
a little bit now the last one on the
list was combination tips and I've
talked on this channel before about the
ECX Drive
ECX comes from the Milwaukee brand and
you're going to find other ones from
other brands that use a different name
so I've been using the ECX for about a
year now and using it for just about
anything I do with electrical and have
been really happy with it that said one
day I looked a little closer because I
noticed something a little funky and
that is that when you look closely up at
the tip it's almost completely flat the
wings go across and then you've got this
little bump where the Square Drive part
is located in the center not much of one
but then I saw okay look inside the
combination screw here and you can see
there is this little round cone shape at
the bottom almost like it's meant to
receive this little tip but it doesn't
work that way what happens is every
single time when you put this in it will
only go as deep as the wings of the
slotted screwdriver portion and that
means it bottoms out it doesn't bottom
out Down in the Hole where all that grip
is and where all that potential torque
comes from it bottoms out in the winged
slotted screwdriver section that means
you're getting very little Effectiveness
out of the tool compared to what you
could be getting if that extended out a
little further what if either that
Square Drive stuck out further to get
down into that pocket in there or the
wings were swept back a little bit so
what I tried to do was do this myself
manually I put this in a Vie and I
started filing so I grabbed some files
and basically my goal was to try to
create the perfect screwdriver bit now I
kept trying and I kept trying and I kept
failing what happened was I couldn't get
the right shape of tip to fit in there
just right and I couldn't find the
proper depth necessarily and I did try
this multiple times and it is better but
it's not what I would recommend I think
I might actually play around with this a
little bit more because I do think
there's a better solution out there but
that also led me to do a little more
searching before long I discovered this
this is the combo tip or combination tip
from Klein isn't this exactly what I was
just talking about basically your wings
are swept back a little bit more the
Square Drive sticks out a little bit
more
one thing that's funky about it is if
you look at the end view on it you can
see it's a little more round than Square
for some reason but still this should be
a huge improvement over what we found in
the ECX and in fact it is this comes in
a number one and a number two size for
whatever work you need to do and it
works really well so I was pretty
pleased to find this but in looking
through some additional comments some
additional forums and some additional
sites I discovered that there are other
options out there that I just had to try
to see if they compare to either of
these that's when I came across this
little guy this is the Bosch I think
it's the P2 R2 yes the P2 R2 not the
R2-D2 and this guy is a combination of a
number two Phillips and a Robertson
number two so in a lot of ways this is a
godsend because this is going to be able
to act as a Philips driver as well as a
number two Roberts super clever I really
like this idea the problem is it's only
a number two they don't make a P2 R1
which is what you would need to work
with outlets and light switches so keep
that in mind so a good option but I also
found that honestly it maybe because
it's trying to multitask a little bit
here it's not giving me as good of a
grip as I would like in fact it tends to
slip a little bit more some people love
these and swear by them maybe I'm
missing something I don't know but to me
they're a little bit Limited in their
application and they're also um not that
great as far as actual grip inside the
screw head now that leads me to my final
screwdriver that I was able to find and
this is a German brand called via or
viha I'm not a German speaker I'm not
sure if I'm saying that right I know the
W's pronounced like a V but didn't get
much past that instead of a combination
slotted and Robertson screwdriver they
make a combination slotted and Philips
screwdriver which I found was pretty
interesting but if you check out the tip
on this and look at the profile shape
you'll see that this might be the best
one yet basically we've got that nice
Phillips view from one side and it looks
exactly like a Phillips and works like
one but then you go the other way and it
has the expanded wings for a slotted
screwdriver and the best part is the
shape of that tip up there means that
not only is it getting the whole
Phillips torque but it's also sinking
down further into that pocket to give
you torque all the way down there for
that philli section so it works really
well when I discovered the Via I thought
maybe I'm done this has got to be the
champion right here but as I started
using it lo and behold it slipped
no I was so like I just wanted this to
be the winner I wanted this to be done I
don't know if I've mentioned this but I
have actually recorded this same video
four different times now because I kept
finding something better and better and
I cannot find anything else at this
point so I thought if this thing still
slips does that mean it's the best
option even though it's not perfect
maybe it doesn't slip much this one has
a fantastic grip and it is an excellent
product but it has slipped a couple
times on me and it's a little
disappointing pointing I want it to just
work so I decided to start from square
one and get out all of my electrical
stuff all of the different screws that I
might be working with around the house
and test everything on here all the
three major regular types plus any
combination Drive I could get my hands-
on so I went through and did that tested
over and over and over and you might be
surprised here again like like I said in
the beginning at what I discovered and
that is the winner the one that works
best all of the time is the Robertson
Drive so you win my Canadian friends so
this one the number one and number two
they had the best grip they had the best
torque they were easiest to get in every
time because of that 90° rotation they
were the least likely to slip out the
least likely to cam out and they just
worked so well not only that but another
thing you have to consider here is how
easy is it to get your hands on these
Robertson are everywhere Square Drive
Robertson and I don't see a huge
difference between them yes there is a
little bit but this one honestly looks
more like a square to me than the
Robertson and it does a fantastic job
now this particular one that I found is
so good this is made by Klein and it is
insulated it's got a slim shaft so you
can get into those little tight spots
that you're working with sometimes and
my favorite part here is you just twist
that it releases and flips over to a
number two so you can go from number one
to number two really easily this is
starting to sound like bathroom humor
but I promise it's not and so they're
both on there it works perfectly this is
just a light tool that's the other thing
it's not trying to be everything to
everyone it's just those two tools and
it feels good in the hand it works great
you do still have to use a slotted
screwdriver and a Filip Screwdriver from
time to time but if you carry this these
three tools this little kit here as your
packout you are in good shape you can do
pretty much everything that you need to
get to no matter what this is what I
would go
[Music]
with that said don't go out and run and
buy new tools unless you're already in
the market for them mostly you probably
already have what you need any bit uh
set like this one here typically comes
with Robertson number ones right here
and Robertson number twos right here
you're going to find these in your house
most likely if you've ever bought any of
these kits like this if you want to use
an impact driver or a drill for doing
your electrical work which a lot of us
do then there's tons of bits um right in
front of me I've got dewalts I've got
bosches I've got makitas and I know that
pretty much every other brand makes
these too the only downside I found is
that when you go to the hardware store
you cannot find a Phillips and a slotted
plus a Robertson number one it's always
Robertson number two I don't know why
the Robertson number two is like the
reigning champ of sizes it works great
for your bigger stuff for your
electrical panel work it's really no
good for when you're trying to work with
outlets and light switches which we as
diyers tend to use so often so keep an
eye out for the different sizes but you
can buy everything that you need you can
you can buy insulated you can buy bits
and so on and I'd love to hear your
opinion on this but don't give me your
opinion until you've tried it try all
these like I did you don't have to try
them all but try a Robertson tell me
what you think get that thing out and
actually put it in and see if it works
like you think it should it really just
works well pretty much every time and
requires minimum force against the screw
itself I'm Nils with learn to DIY thanks
for watching