Is there a special tool for this?

The majority of contributors here are not a representative sample of the population at large when it comes to technical abilities.

I think there is a good case for preventing the average 'man in the street' from tampering with the insides of electrical equipment. If they can't get past the tamperproof screws they're probably not bright enough to deal with what's inside

In my former business making display equipment, i used these screws, which were available as self tapping screws, or metric threads. Two sizes of tool were available for the different sizes of screw and i bought them from RS.

I still have a few of each type of screw and the tools to use them but no longer have any need.

Dek.

Only true tamperproof fixing I've come across is the C/S woodscrew with back ramped drive faces.

Regards Ian.

.

Always known at GKN [where my Dad worked in the 60s] as Jail-Door Screws

MichaelG.

I'm not convinced there is a strong intention on behalf of the manufacturers of this particular machine to stop legitimate repairs and force one to buy a new one. If there was, Panasonic wouldn't have printed a user-friendly service manual.

I note also that in this document they call the screw a 'safety screw', presumable because its primary purpose is to reduce the risk of the careless and inquisitive from doing something silly to the machine that might result in a fire or electrocution.

If they really wanted to prevent dismantling, they could so easily have ultrasonically weld plastic parts together, or made a special fastener, not fit a internationally standardised one for which the tools to remove them are available to the world after 10 minutes on the internet. (....once Mr G has identified the system of course )

Gerry