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

----- Original Message -----
From: Neil
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: SPAM: [Homebrew_PCBs] Drilling machine idea


I have been looking into creating crosshairs on my regular drill press with a
pair of low-cost ($5) laser pointers, each setup to project a thin straight
line. By using 2, it would eliminate any error due to varying board
thicknesses. Still need to find a laser pointer that can project a thin line
though. Most of the ones I have seen will do points, stars, hearts, etc.

BTW, I was in Harbor Freight (here in the U.S.) a few days ago, and they have
the 8" drill press on sale again for an awesome price of $40. This is a
proper "full-size" drill press, and I much prefer this over a wobbly dremel
or hobby-type drill. No, it's definitely not as fast, but is excellent for
drilling PCB's, costs less, and is much quieter.

Cheers,
-Neil.

Make sure the quill is ok. Some of the HF presses I've seen have had 0.020 slop in the quill. Then again, they were not brand new, but had been used for drilling metal etc. We had one at the airport, and a friend had another one at home. Both were too sloppy for even a 1/16" drill bit, but worked fine for 1/4" holes etc, and worked well for wood. This was a couple years back, and I realize HF changes suppliers fairly often, so the new ones may be much better. I buy a lot of stuff from them, the carbide pcb drills have been great, as have a lot of other items, I'm just a little paranoid about the low cost drill press. At $40 its 1/2 the price of a dremel!!!

Thanks
Ron

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