Tri-Wing

The Tri-Wing is a type of screw and screw head. It is sometimes called a triangular slotted screw. It is used as a tamper-resistant screw on various products, typically electronics.

Appearance

Tri-Wing, as the name suggests, is a screw with three "wings" and a small triangular hole in the center. A variation is a kind in which the three "wings" are joined in the center (with no triangular hole). A somewhat similar-looking design in which three short radial slots are not joined in the center is called a "Tri-groove" screw head.

Tamper-resistant

The Tri-Wing is a tamper-resistant screw due to the difficulty in finding Tri-Wing screwdrivers in hardware stores, although they can be legally bought online. As is often the theory with tamper-resistant hardware, there is no expectation that it will be "impossible" for a tamperer to obtain the driver. Rather, the main idea is simply that most tamperers will not bother to seek out and obtain a driver. In the case of end-users, this reduces the incidence of do-it-yourself repair or modifications (and any resulting injury or product damage). In the cases of vandalism prevention and theft prevention, since most vandalism and theft incidents are simply crimes of easy opportunity, the idea is to "raise the bar" and make the opportunity more difficult.

Examples of applications

Discouraging home repair or modifications

* Kyocera uses Tri-Wing screws on their phones.
* Nintendo uses Tri-Wing screws in its Game Boy, DS, DS Lite, GameCube, and Wii products.
* Sanyo uses them in its cell phones.
* Nokia formerly used them in some older phones and chargers.
* Fujifilm used them in some of their digital cameras.
* Sony uses them in one of the panels on the bottom of the laptop model VGNS380P.
* Apple Inc. uses them on their older wireless keyboards.
* Telecom New Zealand uses them on household external junction boxes.
* Microdrives (Type II CompactFlash Cards) often use them.

Discouraging vandalism or theft

* They have been used on light fixtures in common areas of apartment buildings, schools, subways, etc., to prevent the theft of lightbulbs, fluorescent tubes, CFLs, etc.

ee also

* Screws