--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "gettingalongwouldbenice"
<gettingalongwouldbenice@y...> wrote:
...
> I like the manual x-y table on the drill press.
>
This is what I use. With the right lighting, you can do some pretty
accurate manual drilling, even with crappy, aging eyes like mine. For
a row of holes (header, dip, sip, ...), align one end in x and y, lock
one of the axes and then step down the row, drilling. Works pretty
good and fast. I get good enough alignment to smoothly slip the part
in, even a dip or multi-row header.
I've given thought to CNCing my cross sliding vice ($45, from
grizzley) but it has a lot of backlash and 4 TPI leads so the accuracy
wont be too high. Worth looking into antibacklash mods. Still, it
would be a bit of a franken-tool.
The best solution is to SMD as much as you can. Anyone seen decent
SMD headers?
Phil