"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:39:49 -0500, Jim Yanik
wrote:
"friends and customers"; who else would they come from??? ;-)
[dry humor attempt]
Referrals and responders to advertising, which are not friends and not
yet customers. If I had to rely solely on friends and customers, I
would be otto business long ago.
I used to use my Makita drill-driver to unscrew cases when I worked at
Tektronix.it has too much torque for driving them back in.
Yep. That's why I won't use them. Back when I was younger and
dumber, I would use various electric screwdrivers for both removing
and replacing screws. After stripping out a few cases, I decided that
they were basically a bad idea. While using an ordinary screwdriver
is slower, it gives me time to inspect the device and look for
anomalies.
I also have a B&D VersaPack 3.6V screwdriver,but the battery packs have
gone dead. (I found that they can be dismantled by cutting the back end
off
with a Dremel cutoff disc,and the plastic retainer will hold the new cells
in,but haven't bought new cells to try yet.)
In the past, I would just borrow one from the neighboring office if I
needed one. I recently bought a cheapo screwdriver at Sears. The
inspiration was provided by failing to hop the curb on my bicycle. My
left wrist took the shock about 3 weeks ago. It still hurts. I'll
probably hide the electric screwdriver after the wrist recovers.
At 3.6V, you might see what happens when you try to run the screw
driver with a Li-Ion cell phone battery. An 18650 or 123A cell might
also fit. For charging, just stuff it into a cell phone, or buy a
universal Li-Ion charger. Oh, it's already been done:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Black-amp-Decker-Versapak-upgrade-to-Li-ion/
--
Jeff Liebermann
I'm really surprised at the comments regarding electric screwdrivers. Some
years back, I had a short-term contract job where around 1000 Philips LCD TV
sets had to have their speakers replaced for some unspecified reason (parts
were a Philips free-issue). In order to speed the job up, I bought a really
bog-standard cheap as chips no-name drill / driver from my local DIY shed.
Comes in a carry case with about a hundred Chinese drill and screwdriver
bits. I'm sure you know the sort of thing. It has 11 torque settings plus a
no-clutch drilling setting. It carried out the Philips job without
complaint, and I have continued to use it for absolutely everything that I
do from the smallest hi-fi units that I have in for repair, right up to
major project woodwork such as building decks, and the counter I have just
been building for the wife's latest venture. On the lowest torque setting,
you can almost stop it with a finger, and I have never had the slightest
issue with it stripping any case or screw threads, on any item I have ever
used it on. I replaced its batteries ( 10 x C size NiCds) a couple of months
ago, for the second time. These came from some NOS stripper packs that were
being advertised in a trade mag a few years back. I replaced them the first
time probably four years ago, and the second pack that I had, has sat under
the bench in a box in its plastic bag since then. When I dug them out a few
weeks back to replace the first replacement set, which were on their last
legs again, they were pretty flat. I thought that sitting there undisturbed
for four years, might have ****ted them, but they charged just fine in a
couple of hours, and are now giving sterling service. I am back to charging
them about once a week for the general service work that the driver does
daily, and a bit more often when it is being asked to do high torque stuff
like driving unpiloted screws into wood. :-)
Arfa