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

Drilling PCBs is a problem. Right now I'm tending toward using my Foredom handpiece in a drill press attachment with an XY table. The boards I'm building are no more than 3" x 5" so a big XY table isn't required. Foredom tools are very high quality. They use collets rather than a Jacobs chuck. Runout is minimal and they are designed for side as well as in line loads. The motor I have has a max speed of 15,000 rpm. That's a bit slow for PCB drilling, but it is primarily a wood carver. Foredom has pneumatic quills that will run at 300,000 rpm. That's a pretty good clip and should work well in PCB material. 20 years ago the PCB industry was running quills at 120,000 rpm and looking for more speed. Well, here it is at a price you can afford.

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