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. The Tri-Wing is a tamper-resistant screw due to the rarity of Tri-Wing screwdrivers in hardware stores, although they can be legally bought online.

Appearance

File:Triwing screw and tool.jpg

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.

Examples of applications

Discouraging home repair or modifications

• Black & Decker uses Tri-Wing screws on irons.
• 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 some of their PDAs and laptop computers.
• Apple Inc. uses them on their older wireless keyboard, but also the integrated batteries of the Macbook Pro
• Telecom New Zealand uses them on household external junction boxes.
• Microdrives (Type II CompactFlash Cards) often use them.
• Panasonic uses them in some of its cell phones.
• Microsoft uses them on the backside of the Zune HD.
• Hori uses them on the Tekken 6 Wireless joystick.

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.