Visual aids for accurate PCB drilling

[Bob Masta]

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 12:25:17 -0500, "Concerned"
<someone@somewhere.com> wrote:

PCB drilling can often be a hit/miss scenario for some of us who can't
afford CNC machines or don't see the worth in having prototype boards done
by others. Even with SMD instead of thru-hole you'll still need to drill
holes, only much less. Use some form of magnification? Design the holes
smaller than the bit size and let the drill press runout do the rest? Yes,
this topic has been discussed over and over but as new equipment and
scenarios develop it probably should be revisited on a regular basis. And on
this note, my particular interest is in advancements in the area of
magnification.

I started off using a magnification lamp probably like most others. Went to
a magnification visor setup and currently use a SLR camera with a macro
setup. The latter allows me to fairly accurately drill holes without
depending on drill press runout and bit walk. Here's a link to basically
what is seen just before drilling starts;

http://image.pbase.com/u41/eldata/large/27140910.CRW_8443_1.jpg

What I'm now looking for is something better than this even if it entails
the use of a small B&W camera and monitor. Does anyone know of affordable
(less than $300.00) setups like this? Are there any other ideas?

I prefer a low-tech approach with a Dremel tool and
ball-tip dental burs instead of drill bits. You center-punch
the holes first (from the top, if single-sided) and that
guides the tool, The dental burs *never* break, even if
you give them a fair amount of side loading (like a
dentist does!). This is a really fast way to drill boards,
maybe 1-2 seconds per hole max. Only for single
boards, though, since the shank of the bur widens out
too much for a stack.

I wear eye protection and get my face really close to
the work. (Sometimes near-sightedness is good!)

Full discussion of one-off hand-drawn boardmaking
at
www.daqarta.com/lptxh.htm





Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom

D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com

 

[Active8]

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:12:34 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Active8 <reply2group@ndbbm.net
wrote (in <171g1mg25cri2.dlg@news.individual.net&gt about 'Visual aids
for accurate PCB drilling', on Mon, 22 Mar 2004:
There's
a bottom drilling system called a Pindexer used in dental labs that
works like this.

Surely you mean proctology labs? (;-)

LOL They drill behind
--
Best Regards,
Mike