Cheesy quality Slot.It tool

I think I managed to use mine three times before the tip broke off!

Perhaps it's made from the same rubish Ninco use on their gear puller

ABBO

Had exactly the same with mine, now got the NSR tool and had no problems.

Sorry to say I had the same issues with these (both the fixed and the adjustable one), tried some others until I arrived at Hudy. Those are rather expensive, but they do the trick.
Since I'm happy with my tools I can't comment on the offerings from NSR and NINCO (ProRace), though they seem to be good quality too.
Nowadays I only use Hudy, the 0.9 mm for slot.it etcetera, 1,3 mm for NSR and 1,5 mm for 24th and 28th scale.

So: it pays to buy the best quality tools available

I posted on here about this some time ago and also emailed Slot.it but I didn't receive the legendary customer care.

I too have two of the ratchet type so no over-tightening going on. Both tools worked at first. The first for a good few months. Then I bought the second and about a week later the first started to play up. About a week later the second one.

I am not convinced it is the tool although the tip corners may well be slightly rounded (great quality!) but think it is the grub screws that Slot.it use.

The reason is I bought a lot of Slot.it replacements which cost some stupid figure for what you get and hey presto the tools worked again with a nice click when the correct torque was reached. I was happy again but a good deal poorer.

After a few adjustments, you can probably guess what happened, yep the tool does the screw up loosely and then slips in the grub screw.

This can only point to a quality issue with many grub screws or two tools but Slot.it do not seem to want to respond
I too purchased an TOOL but didn't have the best of luck at first as the tip was slightly twisted. I thought that this was the way they were made but now suspect I was sold a used / abused one as the tip broke off. It was replaced with a new insert which has now lasted over a year.

The grub screws I try to replace with stainlesss steel ones from Pendles as an when. I still use the Slot.it ones while I can as I like the ratchet but the combo on new Slot.it parts and cars still gives up after a couple of adjustments and then the one has to take over.

I have to say I don't have one I use allen keys.

How much torque are you guys using? info I found is between 1.65 to 3.3 lbs/ft and that is for 4mm hex head screws.

We are not working on buses here.

Looks like the problem may be the size of the handle not the material used.

Edit for M2.5 7.9 inch-pounds

When i first started getting into this fine hobby back in 2004, i too bought one of these "tools". With carefull use it lasted me until last year. Then i was quite happy to buy another one. Now i race sometimes (club level) three times a week, so i use it all the time. I find that you have to make sure the hex part is well seated into the grub screw before you even begin to turn. And you only need to use youre fingertips to turn it, not youre hand! Once you hear the "click", its time to stop. Some of the guys i race with have had the "issues" some of you are experiencing. but i really think its got a lot to do with how you use it. Sorry, im not trying to upset anyone, but ive used similar tools in rc racing since 1990,so ive had some experence with them. I also think that some of these "pro tools" have handles that are way too big for the jobs that they do. They look like they should be in a rc toolbox,not a slotcar one My two pence.

So, let me analyze the issue here: we're trying to fix an aluminium hub with a steel (grub)screw to a round hardened polished steel axle and expect it to sit there with no play during racing.
What if we had axles which are flattened where we want the rim to be seated?
We could do with a LOT less torque to have the wheel in place (and stay there).
The thing is we would have to have a newer version of the adjustable tool, with a much lower torque setting.
Yes, I've seen people set the screws so tight they deformed the boss in the rims, and then they complain the wheel is out of round... makes no sense at all in my book

Could we please have these axles AND the proper tool to set the screws to the right torque?
I'd be willing to pay more for them, since the agony of wheels coming undone during a race would be eliminated...

Just my €0,02 though, If it works for pinions in R/C racing (where some motors run at well over 20k rpm with loads of torque) it might as well work for wheels and crowns in slots...

QUOTE (slotnik @ 11 Feb 2010, 12:29) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Chapman, do your hands resemble a Gorilla's?
Yes, actually they do.
But they're very weak, an my fingers are even weaker.

I've used hex/allen keys for slot car maintenance since the mid-60s, mainly keys in the classical L-shape.
I've rounded off quite a few during this period, but I've never ever before been able to TWIST the tip of a key.

With a rounded allen key it's also fairly easy to cut and shape the tip proper again with a dremel or hand-file.
An allen key is re-usable, but what to do with a twisted tool?

Also, the re-usable length of the fixed tip on this Slot.it tool is quite short, and not very maintenance-friendly.

An allen key is quite cheap, only a couple of cents.
Even more annoying is that this rather expensive special tool in the +$10 range then is a lot poorer quality-wise
than a regular allen key, which basically is only a length of wire in hexagonal structure, bent in a simple L-shape.

You'd expect (at least I did) that an expensive special tool like this would be a lot more sturdy and powerful,
and also of quite a bit higher quality than a cheap and simple bent-wire tool.

Slot.It has now proven that not to always be the case with this confidence trick tool.

To clarify things a bit further:

It's the plain fixed hex screwdriver tool from Slot.It (SIPA22) I'm referring to in my initial posting in this thread,
NOT the torque version (SIPA23). I think it would have been VERY difficult to twist the tip on the torque tool...

On the other hand, the torque tool is virtually useless when it comes to anything else than adjusting grub screws in
alu wheels and gear hubs. As many of you certainly know (but not ALL of you, apparently...) these small grub screws
today also are used for many tasks other than just in wheels and gears; directly in plastic chassis for adjusting the ride
height of front axles (AvantSlot, PowerSlot, Slot.It, Sloter, Spirit, Scaleauto to name a few), but also in fixations when
assembling the chassis (AvantSlot, MB Slot).

And driving these small grub screws into unthreaded holes in plastic is quite a bit harder and requires quite a bit more force
than into threaded holes in alu wheels and gear hubs. You simply can't use a torque tool for these tasks, as it will only slip as
the grub screw gets stuck in the plastic. You have to use a fixed tool to be able to apply the amount of force that's necessary to
drive the screw all the way into the plastic of the chassis.

And that's when the low quality tools really reveals their true identity and poor (but very expensive) properties...