Drilling the holes in pads I find is the easy part. With Sprint-Layout and I probably most other programs, each pad has a slight dimple in the middle where the copper is etched away. The dimple acts as a guide when using a mini drill by hand and the drill will seat itself in that dimple almost every time. With the board on a block of wood, I usually steady my hand as much as possible on the bench and the drill is held rigidly upright going in and coming out of the hole to avoid the chance of breakages. Each hole takes 3-4 seconds. It only takes minutes to zip through all the lot. Any other diameter holes such as those for mounting bolts can be tackled separately.
Might be worth trial run on a scrap board first.
Peter
MM5PSL
----- Original Message -----
From: Tony Smith
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2011 7:03 AM
Subject: RE: [Homebrew_PCBs] Why Homebrew?
> I can make a PCB at home in under 30 minutes, excluding drilling, with
> 8/8 mil tracks. The only cost is the film I use for printing the artwork
> and the presensitized copper laminate. It will cost under $3 for an 8.4
> sq. in. board.
>
> Why should I pay a lot more to a company like Dorkbot and wait for 10
days?
And if it's SMD, you can skip most of the drilling which tends to be the
hard part (time wise anyway). Make it single-sided and you might be able to
skip all of the drilling.
SMD has actually made homebrew a bit more viable, so long as you stick to
the bigger parts.
Tony
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