torque??? Ask questions and find answers on all aspects of tools including hand & power tools.

[woodspirit]

hello,

I have a ryobi cordless screwdriver which has 10 torque settings, can someone explain in simple terms what these torque settings are and what they are for?.

thanks.

[plumbbob]

The cordless drill you mention like many has a clutch that disengages the drive at certain times.

Torque is the amount of force available to turn the chuck. So in effect, the higher the torque, the bigger the screw the gun will drive in. If you only want to drive in small screws, reduce the torque setting. This will reduce the level at which the clutch will dis-engage the drive so protecting the screw from snapping or being over driven into the work.

That does not mean you HAVE to use a lower torque setting when driving small screws.

[Dagswe21]

Hi there.
I hope I'm not too late replying, as I see your post was dated 6th September, but anyway....
Basically, as far as I'm aware, variable torque settings only come on cordless drills. Don't sk me why, but as far as I know they do!
Torque settings are like the clutch in a car. Sort of. Bear with me. 'Torque' is the amount of power or energy - or 'strength' with which the drill can turn the drill bit. The more torque a drill has, the more strength it can turn its bit with.
But why have this, one may ask? Is it not best to just have the most power possible from any given drill? A prime reason is, say you are using the drill in Screwdriver mode (ie, as a screwdriver). If the drill just went full steam, you can easily damage the screw, or the item being screwed, if this is, say, plastic or wood. Just lower the torque setting, and upon reaching a certain screwing strength, the drill will 'slip' just like a car's clutch, and prevent any damage. The excess energy will be dissipated by the drill's clutch "slipping". Of course, for any job, you need to know what material you are screwing, into what material, to be able to set the correct torque setting for that job. Sorry about the light of the reply, but I hope it helps!!! Cheers.

[ericmark]

Torque is the turning force, power includes time, so torque does not consider the revs per minute or speed at which the screw is being driven only the twisting force put on the screw. By reducing the torque setting you reduce the chance of breaking the screw and damaging the screw head.

However the way the torque is set means once it starts to release you get some impact so with a power screwdriver it is not just torque there is also some impact as well.

Not sure what the metric unit is but old was foot pounds and inch pounds and it is simply the turning force x pound hanging off a horizontal bar one foot long would exert. To avoid necking off wires or not gripping tight enough we use the torque screw driver each manufacturer will state how tight the screws should be. So new name is the newton meter so 1 to 6 should be 1 to 6 Nm although I think I would want to calibrate first a manual screw driver 1.0 – 5.0 Nm costs £66 so unless a very expensive drill I would want to test.

However mechanics also used torque settings but found these are unreliable as one does not really know how much you have stretched a bolt. So today it is a combination the bolt is torqued down first to a low torque and then so many extra degrees of turn are added and the bolts are only used once.

550 foot pounds per second = 1 horse power or 750 watts. This was before the space age. In space you can't use pounds weight you need force, so really 17600 poundals per second = 1 horse power the poundal is the force required to give one pound and acceleration of one foot per second or something like that so 32 poundals in a pound and 32 pounds in a slug.

The Newton replaced the Slug when we went metric so 1 slug = 143.117299273 newtons if we leave the EU will we return to imperial measure?

[cmorales]

What is the model number of Ryobi Tool?