Ikea, PZ, and Desk Upgrade

by Rian

A post for Ikea standing desk is coming, but not this one. I want to use it in depth before I can write about it. Ikea, for all intents and purposes, makes affordable furnitures that are not built to last forever by design. By that I mean, if you are shopping in Ikea, you are planning to refurnish your house without getting remarried instead of following the tradition of Victorian England.

From my experience with Ikea, the company rarely uses Philips screws in its products. It makes sense why to avoid it. The design from 1930s makes no sense for modern standard, and all the literature I could find was how better it was for the assembly line to simply “leave in” the broken bit. I take it was just good enough for the corporate during 1930s, but it is definitely not what I would expect from a DIY furniture product. And they don’t; Ikea uses PZ screws. It also means you need to buy a new set of screws and driver bits.

Not so surprisingly, there are two more cross-shaped screws: PZ and JIS. These standards are designed not to slip, and specifically, PZ has 4 more small side arms that make it look like a star shape. These standards are also compatible with impact drivers, though in Ikea’s case, I believe Ikea wants their customers to do it manually or use non-impact power tools. But most importantly, it was quite weird of Ikea not to come up with a better solution than simply drilling few holes on the desk board. There are metal rails coming out on either side, the wired remote could be attached to either one of them.

Last but not least, desk upgrade was worth it. I see the design trend has changed significantly over the years. One of which is the cable management and lack of drawer underneath the desk. It was always an awkward space; I have to pull myself out if I want to use it. If a desk will force me to move anyway, why limit myself moving only backward — might as well start standing up for some refresher.