Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Stefan,

Yeah, the rod idea sounds right. I'll do that when the time comes. I
can't say I'm looking forward to gripping that small part of the
Dremel, but that would be the obvious business end. There are older
ones (single speed maybe) which look more like a cylinder, but I'd
have no idea what kind of noise they'd put off.

On the noise issue, I'm not really expecting a "quiet" tool, just
"quieter". I figure there has to be some difference in one or two of
them. On web searches, the quietest, unfortunately, looks to be the
cordless variants. I think dogs use them to trim their nails or
something. I also noticed that the generic laminate trimmers are very
cheap on eBay (around the cost of a Dremel). That was what's always
stopped me from getting one for plastics. The PorterCables & Dewalts
are more in the $100 and over range. They are all perfect cylinders,
not much larger than a roto, way more powerful, and run around 30k
rpm. Could be noisy as crap though. The only times I ever run my small
B&D router are when I'm trimming or cutting something which makes it's
own obnoxious noise. I'm wondering if I could just bump a Dremel down
slower. After checking my press, top speed is only in the 3k rpm range
(!) and on top of that, I was running it at <1k this whole time,
before I read the info here. This was with carbides, HSS, and diamond
burrs. The belt drive motor is huge, more like the raw motors I've got
here, and puts off nice LF noise, but I'm not expecting that from a
roto.

I may check the woodwork newsgroup for roto recommendations, but I can
use the available Dremel until I find a good one.

BTW- I've got a decent plan for a really small solid press involving
some fiberglass. If it works out, I'll try to snap some pictures along
the way. May be easier than describing or sketching it. It's not as
complicated as it sounds, but I may make mine a bit more so, just for
the looks and durability.

Thanks again for all the tips and help here!

George