Small Drill Presses

[Fluxed Matter]

Hi Guys...

I am looking for a small drill press for my workbench and that is small enough that  it can be stored away when not in use. I found this one in the link below and I am think of getting it and the vise.

http://www.amazon.com/Proxxon-38128-Bench-Drill-Machine/dp/B0017PUR1Y

Opinions? Suggestions? I appreciate know what you think or what you use.

[TorqueRanger]

What are you using the press for

[Fluxed Matter]

Small projects from light to medium duty. Anything from drilling PCBs to around the house projects that may involve wood, metal, plastic and things like that.

[Smokey]

From the tool company we all love to hate...

Harbor Freight 5 Speed Drill Press
http://www.harborfreight.com/garage-shop/stationary-drill-press/5-speed-drill-press-38119.html

[FenderBender]

$250 is a lot for a little press like that. I know it's a Proxxon and that they are good, but I don't think that will suit you very well for things other than pcb drilling and small stuff.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_197820-46922-3320-01_0__?productId=1207335&Ntt=drill+presses&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNtt%3Ddrill%2Bpresses&facetInfo=

How about that?

I have a press that was cheap back in 1984 and it still works great today.

[Monkeh]

Small projects from light to medium duty. Anything from drilling PCBs to around the house projects that may involve wood, metal, plastic and things like that.

That little toy will be useless with any drill above about 4mm, it's too fast and has no torque at all.

Get the likes of the Harbor Fright one above (no, that's not a typo), if it's too tall, cut the shaft down.

[Fluxed Matter]

Wow! The harbor freight one is really cheap and I know you get what you pay for but I might be tempted. How hard do you think it would be to cut the shaft down? Which do you think would do the job the best hack saw, band saw, or pipe cutter?

[peter.mitchell]

How much "small" does it take to make up for "shit quality"? If not much, I have seen these before, never used one, but it popped into mind when you mentioned drill press i can put away when not i use.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__22393__Hobbyking_6_in_1_Machine_Tool_Sanding_Turning_Sawing_Wood_Turning_Drilling_Milling.html

[Mechatrommer]

i got the bench drill like the harbor freight one but i dont think that can do the small job like drilling pcb, small bits are very sensitive you can easily break them when working with such heavy duty bench drill. i use dremel like handheld small rotating tool to drill pcb, even with that i managed to break few <0.5mm bits.

[TerraHertz]

Wow! The harbor freight one is really cheap and I know you get what you pay for but I might be tempted. How hard do you think it would be to cut the shaft down? Which do you think would do the job the best hack saw, band saw, or pipe cutter?

If you have an angle grinder, try using the very thin abrasive cut-off wheels for steel. They're about 1.5mm thick and cut through steel amazingly quickly. Just be sure before you start that the cutting wheels have a bit more depth than half the diameter of the shaft you need to cut. It's maybe solid steel. Do it outside, it throws a lot of iron filings - not something you want in an electronics workshop.

Though personally I think cutting down a drill press is a bad idea. You really can't find somewhere with space for it?

Incidentally, if you ever do want to use a very fine drill bit in a drill press, you'll probably find that the drill press chuck jaws have bevels and so can't close on the fine drill bit. But there is a way - get a small pin vice, use it to hold the tiny drill bit, then clamp the pin vice in the big drill chuck.
Most drill bit breakages are caused by unintended oblique forces on the bit. But that shouldn't happen with a drill press.

[cybergibbons]

If the column on one of these cheap drill presses was solid steel, you could sell it for more in scrap!

[saturation]

I am not a machinist, but there are very skilled ones on eevblog.

Drill presses can be used for 2 reasons and then all stages between, as a helping hand to as a precision drill.  The more precise, the less likely it can be dissembled for storage.  That's your trade off.

Low cost ones like Dremels, are just mounts for a drill so you can free one or both hands to guide the work.  However, plastic or soft metal parts and the free play of its gearing make it difficult to position precise locations for very small cuts, like for PCB, without a lot of hand adjustments.  But the dremel press matches the dremel well;  if you match a Dremel to a precision press, it won't make the Dremel a mill. But, a Dremel press can be easily disassembled for storage, cleaning or replaced with spare parts.



A better precision press is rock stable, heavy, and has more precise adjustments. The  Proxxon model is such a press, but its value can only be realized with a precision drill,  that's why often a precison press has the drill also built in, to control that variable [ instead of using clamps to hold a hand-held Dremel into it, as in the Dremel press.]

Now, as you go up in price, the amount of precision rises too, and the ability to disassemble them for storage also becomes less easy because of their precision parts.

[saturation]

Interesting, that looks like a clone of the popular Austrian one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/UNIMAT-The-6-in-1-Desktop-Machine-The-CoolTool-/380340795758

How much "small" does it take to make up for "shit quality"? If not much, I have seen these before, never used one, but it popped into mind when you mentioned drill press i can put away when not i use.

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__22393__Hobbyking_6_in_1_Machine_Tool_Sanding_Turning_Sawing_Wood_Turning_Drilling_Milling.html

[Monkeh]

Wow! The harbor freight one is really cheap and I know you get what you pay for but I might be tempted. How hard do you think it would be to cut the shaft down? Which do you think would do the job the best hack saw, band saw, or pipe cutter?

Proper hacksaw.

Don't cut it down unless you simply don't have the space for it, or you'll limit your selection of bits (good luck getting a 16mm drill in there if you do).


If you want a PCB drill specifically, get the overpriced thing you found. If you want something capable of drilling holes for pots, switches, and so on, get a real one.

[nctnico]

I have a Proxxon hand-held drill tool with a drill press for about 20m years. It still works fine up to about 3mm in PCB material and other soft materials which can be drilled at high RPM. Don't expect to drill large holes into metal. For that you need a bigger drill press with more torque like the one from Harbor Freight (I'd get the version with the keyless chuck).

[ecat]

This is a nice introduction to drill speeds, slanted more towards the hobbyist it's not confusingly comprehensive or bafflingly mathematical
http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/drill_speed/

... the conclusion appears to be: a slow powerful drill will be a lot more useful than a fast low power drill.

I own something similar to the HF drill, bought it years ago and nearly killed myself carrying it home on a bus. It's one of the most used tool I have, sufficiently accurate for most tasks, quiet enough to run at 3am, reliable... In short, if you can make room for one then do so.

On PCB drills:
The recommended speed for these small drills (<1mm) is insane, 10,000 or 20,000 or 60,000+ rpm is not unusual. The link suggests lower speeds are ok but great care must be taken with the applied downward force. This is certainly one reason they snap so often.

The second reason for PCB drill breakage is down to the carbide used in their construction. Carbide makes for a very hard drill, it will stay sharp even when cutting fiberglass, carbide also makes for a very brittle drill - it doesn't bend, it snaps with ease and can even shatter if dropped on a hard floor. So, how much sideways motion can a 0.5mm take? Not much.

If the work moves, vibration or sliding, by 0.1mm you could have a snapped drill on your hands. Maybe not the very first time this happens but the 3rd or 10th - vibration can be a killer.

This bring us nicely to a phenomenon called runout. Lots of info out there but this is a nice summary
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7756

Using big drills runout results in oversized holes, using little drills runout results in broken drills. It's vibration again, 0.1mm of runout - wobble - when using a 0.5mm drill results in a lot of stress.

The runout on the HF machine is unknown, I guess 1/10 of a mm would be considered very good.

Also unknown is the runout of Dremels but this has some useful information http://www.buildyourtools.com/forums/index.php?f=8&t=1244&rb_v=viewtopic , 0.0055" = 0.14mm,  0.085" = 2.2mm !!!

In comparison the Proxxon IBS/E has a claimed runout of 0.03mm (3/100mm) and a claims precision collets http://www.proxxon.com/eng/html/28481.php Also the Proxxon drill stand is a lot more ridged than the Dremel stand.

Out of interest, an industrial PCB drill may have runout in the 0.0002" to 0.0008" range...
http://www.lionprecision.com/tech-library/articles/targa-dynamicrunoutarticle.pdf

Can I use my bench drill for drilling PCBs? Yes. Do the drills snap? Yes. Would a Proxxon be better? Yes. Would I swap my bench drill for a Proxxon? No, not for the work I usually do.

[poorchava]

Proxxon is outstanding piece of equipment, but only for very light duty work. I mean like pcb drilling, machining some plastic. I know that those tools are used often by miniature replica makers. They are quite expensive, but that's what you pay for quality. My friend uses Proxxon drill stand + Proxxon grinder for drilling PCBs. He paid something like $180 for that (quite a significant amount of money where I live) but he never broke a drill after that. Proxxon is nice, but that is a PRECISION tool, not a workhorse for deep digging in metal.

I on the other hand use a harbor freight-like 5 speed drill press to do that. First problem with those is of course generally shitty build quality, loosely fitting parts etc. Another problem is that highest speed is in order of 4k rpm, so using small drills means very slow plunging into pcb or the bit will break. You can of course rework such drill press to be precise (like bore the spindle slide, fit quality bearings, etc) but to do that you would need a well equipped workshop which would mean you woldn;t need a HF drill press in the first place . Rigidity is somewhat crappy, but that can be improved. At least HF-like pressed sold in europe have the column hollow instead of full bar, which of course saves cost. This can be filled with concrete or epoxy/glass filler mix.

[Fluxed Matter]

Thanks everyone for all the replies and information. Many of you make good points. Truth is space is very very limited. I don't even have the space over the hood of my wife's car, that would be bonnet for you Aussie folks, to set it on.  I really did not want to cut a drill press to make it fit. The main reason being is that I am not really equipped to do so except for with a proper hacksaw.

saturation, I had consider the dremel drill press also but then I thought if I could find something a bit more medium duty yet small it could also be used for other various jobs. I too am not a machinist by no means, but I am impressed by the skilled ones we have on this forum.

Thanks ecat for the great information on drill speeds and I am still re-reading much of it.

Having a dedicated drill press just for PCB drilling and such is a luxury that I can't afford right now but if I could use it for other things it makes it a more justifiable expense to my wife. 


 

[nctnico]

You put a car in your garage? I'd put the car outside and convert the garage into a workplace!

[notsob]

Do NOT [NOT] get the Dremel drill press - it's a piece of shit.

The mounting for the dremel drill is plastic and can (does) give, allowing the drill bit to move out of vertical when you press the drill down.

[nukie]

Dremel drill press is something you play with your neighbor when you are young.

[Mechatrommer]

i'm considering to get the 6in1 machine tool from hobbyking suggested by saturation. $98 is a too good to be true price (including the lathe) compared to unimat, maybe i can study the "lego" mechanism and see if i can mod it. but unfortunately for new member from Malaysia they limit to $75 for first order damned. they ask me to become gold member first? sorry not gonna happen, i'm not rc helicopter maniac
which items they sell most.

[8086]

Do NOT [NOT] get the Dremel drill press - it's a piece of shit.

+1

Bought it about a week ago, haven't actually been able to use it yet with much success. Pointless.

[Mechatrommer]

Do NOT [NOT] get the Dremel drill press - it's a piece of shit.

+1
Bought it about a week ago, haven't actually been able to use it yet with much success. Pointless.

i've suspected this one since its a bit tricky to hold a curvy shaped tool in place. probably cnc or 3d printer is needed to build a holder that follow the negative shape. thats why i bought a simple symetrical shaped knockoff dremel lasttime, a simple cylindrical shape is easy to make the holder. for poor holder that cannot hold stiff the tool in place, maybe you can brace here and there wherever there is lose contact between the holder and the tool with sometype of hardpaper pieces etc. cable tying to hold it in place is also probably necessary. YMMV.

[nukie]

Do not buy it you will regret. Most parts are made from plastic and the chuck runout is horrific. I learned the expensive way don't do it!!! It's barely usable I am not blowing this up its very useless. It's actually a copy of Unimat and designed for kids.

The factory also makes the machines in full aluminium and some sets also come in CNC!! Check Alibaba or taobao. I don't think its any better.

Get a 7x12 lathe with a mill attachment, it might be more expensive but its more usable and less expensive in the long run.

i'm considering to get the 6in1 machine tool from hobbyking suggested by saturation. $98 is a too good to be true price (including the lathe) compared to unimat, maybe i can study the "lego" mechanism and see if i can mod it. but unfortunately for new member from Malaysia they limit to $75 for first order damned. they ask me to become gold member first? sorry not gonna happen, i'm not rc helicopter maniac
which items they sell most.

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