Link Dynamo

LINK DYNAMO

CW EVALUATION

A missing link in the tool chain

IT’S ONE OF THE UNIVERSAL LAWS OF the Workshop: Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible location. If that tool is a socket, you can wager important body parts that it’ll end up in the worst possible spot on your motorcycle, someplace where retrieval is either virtually impossible or that requires disassembly of something you hadn’t intended to disassemble.

This is why Link Industries (100 Fusion Way, Country Club Hills, IL 60478; 800/669-9910) came up with the Dynamo, a -Vs-inch-drive socket set that is unremarkable save for one attribute: Once pieces of this system are snapped together, they can’t fall apart accidentally. The user has to separate the tools by disengaging a simple locking system on the ratchet, the extension, or both.

The Dynamo is available as a complete set that includes a ratchet, a 2inch extension, a 6-inch extension, and seven sockets ranging from 3/sto 3/4inch (a metric set is also available), all nicely packaged in a metal case for $100. Or, you can buy just the ratchet and the 2-inch extension for $60.

Actually, the Dynamo uses two different types of locking systems, one on the ratchet and another on the extensions. The Dynamo’s inventor, Peter Roberts, designed the original locking ratchet introduced by Sears some 20 years ago, and the Link ratchet employs that same type of mechanism. Its -Vs-inch square-drive shank has a detent ball that fits into small grooves in the sides of the square-drive holes in the sockets and extensions. The detent does not allow the ratchet to be snapped into or out of an extension or a socket until a button on the backside of the ratchet head is depressed.

On the extensions, the locking system is controlled by a thick, springloaded metal ring around the lower part of each extension. Lifting the ring retracts a locking pin that protrudes at a downward angle from one side of the extension’s male end. A socket can be installed on the extension by just snap-

ping it in place, but removing it requires the ring to be lifted.

We found that if you use only the extensions and sockets supplied with the Dynamo set, the locking system works perfectly. Not only do the sockets and extensions never fall off accidentally, you can’t even forcefully pull them off without releasing the locking mechanism.

Combine the Link system with other sockets and extensions, though, and you get mixed results. Depending upon any given tool’s manufacturer, the exact location, shape and depth of the small detent grooves on the insides of the square-drive holes often don’t match those of the Dynamo. As a result, the Dynamo’s detent mechanisms may not lock properly into sockets and extensions you already own.

We tried the Dynamo ratchet and extensions in more than 100 different 3/8-drivc sockets made by a half-dozen manufacturers, and also mated the ratchet with 14 extensions made by four manufacturers. The ratchet performed acceptably in the vast majority of sockets and extensions; the Link extensions, however, only worked well in about half of the applications, were marginal in approximately onethird, and fared rather poorly in the rest. In the latter cases, sockets would fall off rather easily because the extensions' retaining devices would not engage in the sockets’ detent holes.

What we have here, then, is a clever concept that performs as advertised so long as you don’t mix-and-match it with other -Vs-drive pieces. Depending upon the brands of tools you currently own, that practice could either work flawlessly or have you chasing more runaway sockets than ever. E3