Shoutbox

my friend was unscrewing his psp and he accidentally stripped his screw so you can't turn the screw anymore.

it's a  size #00 + screwdriver

how do i get this stripped screw out?

Well first off he shouldn't have kept doing it to bore away the screw head.

But if you get a drill with a good hard tip you can drill into the screw and then unscrew it by reversing the drill spin, otherwise you may have to completely drill through the screw, but not sure how you could do that with the psp, I had to drill through a threaded rod that got stuck in a thread cutter before (on my latest armature) completely destroying it.

You might get some better suggestions, like just put ALOT of pressure onto the screw or attempt to carve another X into the head and work from there

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Originally posted by aNILEator
But if you get a drill with a good hard tip you can drill into the screw and then unscrew it by reversing the drill spin, otherwise you may have to completely drill through the screw, but not sure how you could do that with the psp,

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I wouldn't attempt that, I do not have a PSP but I can imagine that the screws are tiny, and to do the drill thing (which has worked for me, on bigger screws) you would need a very precise drill and hand, so no.

Get a small and thin metallic file, and carve a LINE, and get a normal flat screwdriver to unscrew it, its simpler than carving a Phillips head A very sharp and small knife may work too.

Filing is only an option if the screw isn't recessed, which the screws holding together housings of electronic devices usually are.

It is probably not necessary to drill through the entire screw, just to drill off the head.  That should be relatively safe and will leave enough  to unscrew and remove the rest of it with pliers after the device comes apart -- so, if you do it right you would only need a replacement screw and it would be as good as new.

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There are two methods of screw extraction when the screw heads are hopelessly damaged. The first is to just use an electric drill to remove the head of the screw. Drill directly through the center of the head with a drill bit maybe a third the size of the head, about 1/8" deep. Use progressively larger bits until the head of the screw comes off. Then, remove the maintenance panel. There should be more than enough screw shank (the "body" of the screw) remaining to grip with a pair of pliers... preferable self locking pliers such as Vicegrips. Hold tight and carefully turn the screw out.

If course, if the panel you are removing is very thin, there might not be enough screw shank to grip... so you can use a screw extractor instead. A screw extractor looks something like a blunt-ended screw with very broad threads. These hardened cutting threads are in the opposite direction of a standard right-hand threaded screw. When you turn the extractor, it tightens into the hole giving it a firm grip. To get a correctly sized screw extractor, take one of the screws you successfully removed to the hardware store. The salesman should be able to give you the correct size extractor and the right size drill bit for this job! The hole size is important... it should be no more than about 75% of the diameter of the screw shank. If you attempt to use too large an extractor by drilling too large a hole you may overly weaken the screw shank and the head might just break off! Back to step one!

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Read more from Source: http://www.stretcher.com/stories/990927j.cfm

How a screw extractor looks:

As mentioned in a previous post, you probably wont be able to find something like this in a small enough size but the first option mentioned in my quoted text (and suggested by Adeptus) could work.