My current torque wrenches of choice. Easy-to-use, accurate, fast, and finely polished. They offer the same aspects that you would expect to find with other electronic torque wrenches, but with a little bit more thought put into the use of some of the features.

It’s the little things about these wrenches that I really like. Let’s gloss over the features first, and then show where they shine in their details. The tools have 80 tooth flex ratchet heads, allowing for a finer-than-most 4.5 degree swing arc, access to tight areas, and is reversible to allow you to take your measurements in either direction. There is a back-lit screen to show pertinent information, six buttons handle all of your controls, and there are two progressive lighting indicators and an audible and tactile buzzer to let you know when your target torque or angle has been achieved.

Now for those pesky details that I like so much. First off, the six button controls make for a compact control solution without cramming too much onto one button or requiring a degree to know how to use the thing. There’s power, up and down, back-light, angle, and unit. I like the separation of the angle and unit controls because this tool, like others, requires a zero when angle is selected which will require you to keep the tool still. The progressive lighting bars are placed at the corners above and below the display, which means that you don’t have to be looking at the tool head-on to know that you’re nearing your target, you can look at it from the side and still have the lights clearly visible. The last nifty feature that I enjoy is in the display, at the top right corner of the screen is a two digit counter that increments each time you torque a fastener to the target torque or angle. This is nice reassurance that you haven’t accidentally skipped a fastener.

The only thing I wish I could change about the TechAngle wrenches is how many units are available for torque settings. I generally only use two for each tool: an SAE unit such as inch-pounds or foot pounds, and the metric newton-meter. Some of the units offered I’ve never even heard of, much less will I use, which means that when I want to select between the ones I use, I have to cycle through the ones I never will. A very small complaint though, considering all of the features offered by these wrenches.

Pros

Ease of use
• Accuracy of $latex \pm$2% CW and $latex \pm$3% CCW from 20-100% of full-scale
• Speed
• Polished design with attention to the details

Cons

• Too many torque units to cycle through

Manufacturer: Snap-onList price: $431.95-544.95 as of 7/1/14
Scales: ft. lb., in. lb., Nm, dNm, Kgcm
Torque range: 1/4 model – 1 to 20 ft lbs, 3/8 model – 5 – 100 ft lbs, 1/2 model – 12.5 to 250 ft lbs