I need small drill bits. Where can i find them?

Ravenkallen · 2010-09-29 20:10

Well, i have officially looked around(Wal-Mart, Target, Radio Shack) and i can not find anything smaller than 1/16Th. what is the common drill bit size for making dip size holes in your board? Is such a thing available in common stores?

potatohead · 2010-09-29 20:11

Go to a full service hardware store, like Ace, or Tru-Value, something like that.

The one near my house has bits as small as .007" !!!

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) · 2010-09-29 20:17

For small bits with small shank sizes, you need a precision drill chuck that can grip them. Most can't. But you can also get PCB drills with 1/8" shanks from McMaster-Carr. The catch is that they're solid carbide, which means they will snap in half if you just look at them wrong. So you will also need a drill press or Dremel tool with a stand.

BTW, for DIPs use a .035" drill; for square-pin headers, 0.042".

-Phil

Ravenkallen · 2010-09-29 20:48

Dang, i just bought a cheap drill that i was hoping would have sizes that went down far enough.. So are you saying that i will need a whole different drill? Or could i find some kind of adapter?....

Leon · 2010-09-29 21:14

I use reduced-shank tungsten carbide drills in a Minicraft (similar to Dremel) drill stand with a Minicraft drill at about 18,000 rpm. I use 0.7 mm drills for ICs. Resharpened drills are a lot cheaper than new ones and work just as well. I get mine from Mega Electronics here in the UK:

http://www.megauk.com/

They have distributors in the USA.

ElectricAye · 2010-09-29 21:16

Ravenkallen wrote: »

Dang, i just bought a cheap drill that i was hoping would have sizes that went down far enough.. So are you saying that i will need a whole different drill? Or could i find some kind of adapter?....

Close your drill down to as tight as it gets and see how big the remaining "hole" is. As Phil said, some drills can't grip something as small as 1/16 inch. But don't panic. Almost any drill can handle 1/8 inch shanks, the kind of which Phil pointed you to in McMaster-Carr.

If this is intended for the pcb you are designing, don't drill them yourself! expressPCB can make decent size holes on the pcb. Just click on a hole and then scroll through the selection to get what you feel comfortable with. A hole that fits 4-40 or 6-32 screws should be strong enough to secure that little pcb you showed us earlier. Just space three or four such holes around near the edges of your pcb and you're set. Just make sure you have plenty of clearance around the hole for the heads of the screws so you don't short out ground planes, etc. if you happen to have those on the board.

AJ-9000 · 2010-09-29 22:04

I think what you need is mini drill chuck with 1/4 inch shank, here's one that will work with drills down to .0059";
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=20388&utm_source=amazon&utm_medium=ad&utm_campaign=amazon

here's a larger one;
http://www.amazon.com/Keyless-Chuck-Shank-Micro-Drill/dp/B001UPTDSY/ref=sr_1_14?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285819944&sr=8-14

Zoot · 2010-09-30 07:55

Lowe's, Home Depot, hobby stores and the like that sell Dremel products will generally also sell the very small drill bits that Dremel carries. It can be a way to get your bits fast if you need them right away.

Ravenkallen · 2010-09-30 14:26

@Electricaye....This is for a separate project. i am going to try making my own PCB. I bought the Ferric chloride and i am going to buy a few copper clad boards. I am going to take a PCB design down to a print shop and ask 'em to print it off on photo gloss paper. This is just a side project and i still plan(I need to save up a little more money) on buying the boards from express PCB..

@Everyone else....I gotta admit that i am not to familiar with drills and the necessary hardware. Perhaps i will find a tutorial online...I might upload a picture of the drill and bits if it would help

ElectricAye · 2010-09-30 16:08

Ravenkallen wrote: »

....I gotta admit that i am not to familiar with drills and the necessary hardware....

Make sure what you're drilling is clamped down. Don't try to hold down the pcb with your hand. Thin workpieces (like sheet metal, etc. ) have this pesky habit of wanting to ride up the drillbit like it's a spiral staircase. I would also like to echo Phil's comment about breaking off tiny drillbits: having some kind of drill press or other guide might be necessary with tiny drillbits as any bending motions tend to snap them off or just bend them toward uselessness. Wear eye protection, too, because those flying broken bits hurt when they stick into your corneas. Finally, be careful how and where you lay down your drill if you've still got the drillbit in it - those tiny drill bits are kinda like big hypodermic needles, so if you accidently bump into one, you get inoculated with whatever microbes happen to be dancing on its tip.

Have fun!

Franklin · 2010-09-30 19:53

http://drillcity.stores.yahoo.net/newtuncardri.html

Ravenkallen · 2010-09-30 20:02

hehehe, i just tried the ferric chloride on a protoboard and it WORKED!!!!!. I used a permanent sharpie to protect some of the copper from the chemical....Next stop is buying some blank boards and designing a simple circuit!!!

Duane Degn · 2010-10-01 19:54

Here's another option http://www.micromark.com/Drill-Bits.html

I've also found small drill bits with 1/8" shanks at Harbor Freight.

AJ-9000 · 2010-10-02 18:52

In this experiment I tried and was able to drill a .028" hole through a 1/16" circuit board by turning the shank by hand in under a minute. Also the weight of the chucks (note for this experiment the cordless screwdriver wasn't attatched or used) was sufficient for the downward drilling force alone and so much so that I wouldn't want to use a smaller drill than this. Some details, this is a 1/4 inch shank drilling guide with a 3/8" chuck and attached to that is a mini drill chuck with 1/4 inch shank. Because the cordless screwdriver uses 1/4 inch bits it can just slip over drilling guide's shank.

I think if I tried doing this with a small variable speed Dremel in a drill press it would have broken the drill because they don't have enough low rpm torque the way a cordless screwdriver would using the above arraignment.

AJ-9000 · 2010-10-07 21:49

I just bought a great little jewelers drill press http://www.micro-tools.com/store/P-97511MDP/Se-Mini-Drill-Press-Bench-Jeweler-Hobby-8500-Rpm-3speeds.aspx
that has the same quality of a regular sized drill presses and costs $75. The 6 MM chuck works with drills down to .0225". Of the two holes I drilled ( 1 MM and .0025") into a 1/16" circuit board it only took a couple seconds for each with the belt ratio set a low speed and the speed control set to about 1/4 speed.
The only problem is Center of chuck to front of column is small only 4.25" inches and the chuck fell off because it wasn't cleaned well enough ( I fixed the problem by thoroughly cleaning it before putting it back on see Installing a Drill Press Chuck at" http://www.machinistblog.com/ ").

Spiral_72 · 2010-10-08 11:48

Hey man, ESPECIALLY if you don't know what you are doing.... wear goggles or large safety glasses for bits that small. I'd hate to think how many < 1/16" I've shattered. Sometimes they stick in your clothes, sometimes your skin, sometimes your eye.... It's bad news.

I get mine from Travers. They have tiny bits with large shanks for your drill and they pretty cheap.

jdolecki · 2010-10-08 12:19

Hobby Shop in the rc car section

Ravenkallen · 2010-10-08 20:09

I found some good drill bits at a hardware store and i bought a nicer drill so that i can use the smaller bits...Thank you ALL for your help.

I need small drill bits. Where can i find them?

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