I'm ok for that. Picked up a decent drill press that looks like it was made for the job - in the '30s - off Ebay. With a vast quantity of tungsten bits. It may be old, but it's a delight to use and built like a tank. Managed to fit a spot to it too, so it can be used near anywhere.
I used to get through tungsten drill bits like nobodys business with fibreglass boards, not cheap either. I looked at a modern board recently, the via holes are minute, they only look a few thou, how do they do that?
Basically, you can't use tiny tungsten drills either hand held or in a press with 'slop' in the travel. They'll break. You need a good drill press and the work held firmly. With that, the bits last a long time even when drilling fibreglass. I've no experience of Dremel etc drill stands, but suspect they're not good enough.
In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes
I bought one of these, RS 606-664 a few years ago at an auction and his has proved invaluable, saved a lot on broken bits. Vacuum extraction and illumination too. Unfortunately it doesn't appear in there catalogue any more, but I have seen the occasional one on Ebay
they just seemed to wear out quickly, or maybe I drilled a lot more holes than I thought.
I still wanna know how they drill such small via holes.
In message , brass monkey writes
A very good and robust machine, not sure how I managed before getting it. I don't know, so probably wrong, but I would imagine very short bits so as not to have too much option for wobble, what they would be made from though, I again have no idea.
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newer. Mine is badged Fortex Leicester. I could put a pic up somewhere - would be interested to know how old it is. It originally had a toggle on/off switch which I replaced with a rocker as it was broken.
In message , brass monkey writes
And a very high spindle speed apparently. Up to 300,000rpm.
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