[rusteh1]

Is anyone familiar with the matter able to comment on the use of Torq-set fasteners? Are they a standard for these sort of use cases? They seem to be used frequently in Aerospace? I tend to use Torx whenever possible, are these better? Or should they have used something else to avoid such issues?

[KennyBlanken]

It's a fastener used mostly in the military, developed by Phillips purely to get the military using its proprietary/patented design to extract as much tax dollars as possible. It is widely reviled by aviation mechanics because it strips at the drop of a hat and is difficult to torque.

It is only in use because "it's what we have billions of dollars sunk into existing tools and fastener stock" despite it being wildly inferior to torx, as demonstrated by the fact that NASA needed to make a gigantic fucking C-clamp to keep it from camming out.

Consider that the entire point of the Phillips head (which the torq-set is just a different pattern of) is purposefully designed to cam out to limit torque so that someone can't guerilla it so tight the head snaps off. Which is not an issue in aerospace where everything is assembled with calibrated, precision drivers.

Using it on a "we critically need to be able to get this apart later" part is beyond asinine on NASA's part.

NASA are a bunch of dinosaurs incapable of change. It's really cringe seeing them toot their horns so much about solving a problem that never would have occurred if they weren't using a fastener that even a fresh-out-of-school aircraft mechanic could have told them wasn't appropriate for this application.

[pilina]

NASA got what they deserve. The could just ask every single aircraft mechanic about this one. Especially bloody torq-set. With budget they had. They could machine any head the wanted, and yet they've chosen stupidest one out there.

[vba616]

According to the link posted in another comment, they don't look like Torx at all, and the main marketing points are:

  "Offset cruciform shape with straight wing walls

  Greater torque transfer
  Removal walls larger than drive walls

  Facilitates disassembly without drill outs"

https://www.phillips-screw.com/drive_systems/torq-set/

[bcrl]

I first learned about torx when I was a kid as Commodore used torx screws on the Amiga 500. One time I wired up a pseudo SRAM from Active Electronics on a breadboard by putting an interposer in the CPU socket to pull out the signals I needed. Put it in an unused part of the address space and added it to the memory pool. Oh, the fun that hackable hardware was in the 1980s!