Ranty McRant's thread of rantworthy things

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 17:28

Why, for the love of bob, WHY! Do they put those tiny little screws in some battery compartments to hold them down?

You get your kid something nice, think ahead and buy some batteries, they unwrap it, and ask 'dad can you put the batteries in for me'.

The you're having to hunt round the house looking for something that'll fit the teeny tiny little screw they've decided just had to be used to hold the battery cover in place.

More than once I've just levered the damn thing up and duct taped the cover back on, unless it's something where such damage matters. This morning I went the duct tape route, because [forum filter alert] it.

EasyAccess · Post by **EasyAccess** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 18:05

Nearly all battery covers are tightened with phillips screws of a certain size. One drive to open them all.
I think it is usually size #1 but I don't know for sure right now.

TBH you are well served by buying a bit-set of different drive types and sizes - at least some slot and phillip drives. How do you maintain your everyday life without a basic tool set?

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 18:14

Back in my pre academia days I once worked as a fabricator in my teens, learning to weld under a guy who'd worked on oil rigs.

Wonderful guy. Total screaming queen, built like a brick um, like a thing made of bricks that was very solid, and tough as they came. I really enjoyed working with him.

His approach to many problems was 'if it don't fit, whack it with a hammer till it does'.
Our standard toolkit was a great big ball peen hammer and a huge flat head screwdriver

Seemed to work them. With some modification to fit changing circumstances and tools, that advice has continued to serve me well, and still does in my current career.

I don't want a set of fiddly little screwdrivers that I won't use except for things that I can just rip off and duct tape together again, sans irritating fiddly arse screws.

It occurs to me that Basils initial tough but fair tutelage at the start of my working life may have more of an influence on my attitude towards my students than I have previously realised....

Praefectus classis · Post by **Praefectus classis** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 18:45

I do understand your frustration with the tiny screw but I should imagine it's some health and safety thing to stop kids opening it up. Trouble is it causes problems for adults too such as those annoying safety tops on bottles. The little screws also have an inherent desire to make a bid for freedom if they are not captive. Looking on the floor for a tiny screw is infuriating in the extreme.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 19:00

Heh, my micro-rant is with those people who ask me to help them with some electronic device that is unstable and not very reliable - all because of the poor battery contact in its holder since they lost, broke, or otherwise misused the battery cover or retainer.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 19:24

Alan Phipps wrote:Heh, my micro-rant is with those people who ask me to help them with some electronic device that is unstable and not very reliable - all because of the poor battery contact in its holder since they lost, broke, or otherwise misused the battery cover or retainer.

You talkin to me Alan? YOU TALKIN TO ME?
[ external image ]

It took an embarresing amount of time to get the right quote then a suitable image. I don't want to talk about it.....

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 20:52

mrbadger wrote:Why, for the love of bob, WHY! Do they put those tiny little screws in some battery compartments to hold them down?...

It's a conspiracy.

Screwdriver manufacturers have to sell those tiny little kits of mini-screwdrivers with ten damn screwdrivers in it, only one of which you actually friggin' need. Then, there's the "Tiny Friggin' Screw Company of Wala-Wala Washington" that buys the cheapest metal they can find from China. Might be Aluminum, might be Radium, you don't friggin' know, but it's guaranteed to be the softest darn metal available when compared to the friggin' expensive tungsten-carbide tipped mini-screw-drivers you just bought. Why? Cause the tap&die manufacturers gotta sell them darn mini-tap&die kits, with only one darn tap you actually need to get out the darn friggin' rounded-off mini-screw you just stripped the head off of. And, when all those guys have gotten their conspiracy money? It's time for the friggin' tape manufactures to get in on it, since the screw-well in the thing is designed to crack five-ways from Sunday after half-an-hour of applying more torque to it than the lock on President Trump's safe that has his copy of "Golden Shower Adventure Boy" in it.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 21:14

I knew it

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 21:23

Ah, a rant thread. Where have I seen that before?

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... start=1950
Or this one maybe?
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... c&start=30

Round and round we go...

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 22:12

I have a set of small screwdrivers I keep in a cupboard just in case. I mean, the box is maybe the size of a packet of cigarettes, if you don't have room in a cupboard somewhere for something like that then I wonder about your accommodation! Heck, I still have the soldering iron I bought in my first year at university hanging around somewhere--you never know when you'll need to repair something, and repair is always cheaper than replace.

greypanther · Post by **greypanther** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 22:30

pjknibbs wrote:repair is always cheaper than replace.

Often quicker and even easier too. Every home should have a half decent toolkit and someone able to use it...

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Sun, 12. Mar 17, 23:01

We just had our house completely rebuilt, and threw away whole rooms full of stuff, including everything in the garage, which is now my super awesome bedroom and en suite wet room ( a real one, not those pansy ones they try and call wet rooms in the high street showrooms), more like the ones you get in a hospital, because I'm disabled, and it is amazing.

But even if we hadn't, I still wouldn't have gone looking for a little screwdriver, hate the things, little fiddly buggers...

exogenesis · Post by **exogenesis** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 00:24

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives

this is what drives me nuts about securing screws on all types of consumer goods, all those different head types,
stars, triangles, gear shapes etc - it seems like they've proliferated over the years.

You have to buy several boxes of 'special' screwdriver sets to make sure you get a covering set of types & sizes.

Guess when the manufacturers use them it's because 'we dont want consumers to be able to open that up',
but a lot of the time the weird head screws are used on items that need to be user-accessed (i.e. by me...well I think so anyway).

OmegaKnight · Post by **OmegaKnight** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 00:32

s*!# like this does nothing to enhance my calm.

Torx bits, socket set, spudger and multimeter
as well as screw driver set and soldering iron.
And you can store them in this handy thing called a Tool box

philip_hughes · Post by **philip_hughes** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 01:29

All my screwdrivers are left handed! I bet the guy at the shop was just trying to offload them to some poor sucker.

Also- my spatulas.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 05:12

pjknibbs wrote:I have a set of small screwdrivers I keep in a cupboard just in case. I mean, the box is maybe the size of a packet of cigarettes, if you don't have room in a cupboard somewhere for something like that then I wonder about your accommodation! Heck, I still have the soldering iron I bought in my first year at university hanging around somewhere--you never know when you'll need to repair something, and repair is always cheaper than replace.

I have ten of those friggin screwdriver kits and I don't know where a damn one of them is... I DO have a nice, expensive, set for working on computers, though. And that's the only thing it will ever get used on! I bought my first soldering iron when I was.. eleven, maybe. I used to use it to make radios and other electronics permanently broken, but in an entertaining way, since they'd always squeal really loud before they died. (Before that, I used my dad's iron. Burnt a hole in a neighbor's rug with it, once. Don't ask...

)

OmegaKnight wrote:s*!# like this does nothing to enhance my calm....

Ah... Here comes the Insurance Companies. Show 'em your wanker and tell them that's the most intimate they're ever going to get with you. If they balk, sue 'em and you'll get to wave it around in a courtroom.

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 13:12

I have a great set of tools for working with computers, really complex, in good working order.

They belong to the guy I pay to put my computer together when I buy the bits and fix it when it goes wrong.

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 13:26

Every single damn DIY job that comes up in the house seems to be a case of:
- "Ah ha! I know exactly which tool is required for that."
- [Rummage in tool box], "Oh FFS I thought I had one"
- Option A: Attempt job with suboptimal tool / Bodge it.
- Option B: Put off job, buy tool.

I seem to have an ever expanding toolbox which never manages to be complete / useful for the job at hand. . . . I suspect its some kind of giant scam to sell tools.
On the plus side where I work has a "scientific workshop" in the basement, which is honestly a Godsend. They are willing to lend out tools and have pretty much everything, including tools I wasn't even aware where a thing that existed.
The university is constantly trying to close it down as it's not very cost effective, but keeping it open is a cause that manages to unite every professor in the institute . . . . which is quite some feat.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 17:49

@ Morkonan & Exogenesis: I agree that the range of small screw head types in use can be extravagant and the quality of their metal sometimes rather to be desired.

My personal solution is to keep a wide range of good quality small screws with common standard heads. I replace the 'security', tamper-proof or unsuitable screws with good conventional ones on first disassembly. It also means that it is not a drama to drop and lose one!

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Mon, 13. Mar 17, 20:13

Alan Phipps wrote:...My personal solution is to keep a wide range of good quality small screws with common standard heads. I replace the 'security', tamper-proof or unsuitable screws with good conventional ones on first disassembly. It also means that it is not a drama to drop and lose one!

I used to do that, too! I have/had one of those big multi-compartment boxes with a nicely organized set of commodity fiddly-bits, just in case I needed something. Jumper bridges, assorted screws, blank brackets for covering slots, drive bay covers, rail converters, yada yada...

But, the primary commercial brick&mortar sources sort of dried up. ("Radio Shack", computer chains, etc.) I don't order off the 'net, much. So, I now rely on drawers full of old boards/cards and 'puter bits to scavenge from, since I eventually ran out of backup parts.

I do go to a nice mom&pop local computer shop to buy stuff like that, now. They've got a wide selection of esoteric crap I like to poke through, but they don't have a lot of each individual item. A few packs of the right-size screw, for instance, and since they don't have deep pockets, they re-order stock infrequently. Still - I like supporting small local shops, so I don't mind too much.

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