PCB Drill

Pay a PCB house :-)

Anyhow, I'd just check out a Drill-Press stand at Lowe's or HD. You could even buy it, try it out and return if not satisfied. Provided you didn't scratch it or anything like that.

My dream some day would be one of those micro lathes. Well, got to have dreams.

If you need really good tools for precision jobs ask a jeweler. They know what works.

I'd be inclined to look for a high speed model - maybe air driven?

Here is my setup - it works quite well....

The drill stand is quite accurate.

Luhan

A small drill press or the Dremel with the drill-press attachment will work. Consider staying with steel drills, as the carbides break easily if speed and feed rates are not exact.

John

Dremel with dremel drill press attachment and dental burrs. The problem with breaking bits doesn't occur with dental burrs, in my experience.

Ed

I drill boards with Dremel. When installed in their drill press it's just fine for carbide bits. I never broke one, even the tiniest bits are fine with that setup.

Use surface mount and forget about holes altogether?

Of course, if you make dual layered boards, you still need holes, but at least you'll need fewer of them.

I disagree. I have a Proxon drill + drill-press. It is similar to the Dremel stuff. I've drilled thousands of holes with it using carbide drills. In over 15 years I broke 1 or 2 drills. Steel drills get dull too quickly (after about 30 holes) when drilling epoxy/fiberglass boards.

If you need dual layer, paying a PCB house maybe cheaper. These days you can have a lot of PCBs made before the 'investment' and hassle of having your own etching equipment pays itself back.

schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...

In my experience carbide bits with thick shafts (3mm) break easily when not perfectly centered. You cannot seek for the hole in the copper island. So I tend to use carbide bits with thin shafts, as thin as the holes they are suppose to drill, normally 0.8mm. I ever started a project to use a camera and monitor for perfect centering but it is on hold. Busy, busy, busy with other things.

petrus bitbyter

Pay a PCB house!!

Considering the time, effort, annoyance, storage space, ruined clothes, the tedious getting and disposing of chemicals and the often sub-standard results

They are better quality than the Dremel and the Minicraft drill and stand I use; the bearings don't have so much slop in them. My Minicraft drill has nearly 1 mm play at the chuck, but I don't break too many tungsten bits.

Leon

I have been using one for 20 years. It has some wobble, but I have never broken a bit because of it. I have always liked it.

Gary Peek Industrologic, Inc.

I have used a Dremel in it's stand, but found there was a fair bit of slop and wobble. I now use a 3-speed Proxxon 28121 with used carbide bits discarded by PCB houses. With the right contacts, you can get unlimited supplies for free. Start schmoozing.

If you value your time it would be cheaper to use a PCB house, but sometimes your time is better considered free. All depends on your interests vs desire for income.

Barry Lennox

What sort of price does a PCB cost for making a board?

Can you give an example?

Wise> snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

I can drill with small carbide drills in one of the particular Dremel drill press stands I have, though I've shimmed it so the table doesn't wobble so much. Also, I've shimmed the Dremel collet so that the drills run true. This is for #80 and smaller drills, the sizes I most commonly drill for "vias" in my mainly surface-mount work. But I like the drill press I have access to at work a bit better, even though it can't turn much above 10k RPM.

I've thought of making a better stand for the Dremel (or for a Sioux

I've broken plenty of drills over the years, but it's mostly because either I'm being careless or the drill is getting dull after a few thousand holes. Even without shmoozing PCB manufacturers (no longer common in every large town now anyway), you can get drills for $.50 each or less.

Cheers, Tom

There are dozens of companies out there with on-line calculators. Try

I keep meaning to make something like your 'A' frame out of a piece of Al channel with something like Oilite bushings to keep it as rigid as possible.

I use reground drills, a bit shorter than the new ones but fine for my purposes and a lot cheaper than new ones.

Leon

FWIW, I've used a Dremel drill press, and always got good results. A real Dremel drill press thing is pretty stable, and I don't think they're anywhere near a hundred bucks.

Good Luck! RIch