Micro drills advice

[Tim Marlow]

You are well and truly b******d when that happens. I have yet to find a way of getting the little piece of broken drill out of the hole

In white metal you can dig out the drill, fill the hole with solder, dress it, then start again. For Plastic, brass, or resin you are on your own :tongue-out3:

[boatman]

Yes they do Chris, but they bust a lot easier in a power drill at 20000rpm. A pin vice is much easier to control, but I’ve still managed to break two or three in quick succession on the same job on occasion. The worst thing to drill with them is white metal. Binds really easily and just snaps the drill off.

HI Tim well i use my dremel with a chuck fitted an the varible speed turned down as slow as can be but them drills still bust but i find the pack of tiny drills are much sronger will put on a pic of them tiny drills an there are about 30 in the pack right from the tinyest drill up to 2mm drills an i find them great
chrisbmtb

[Tim Marlow]

Personally I’d never drill anything 1mm and under with a hand held power tool Chris, even into brass or nickel silver. For me, that’s into the world of the pin vice all the way. I use HSS drill bits virtually all the time. Although I do own a set of those circuit board drills, I rarely get them out and use them.

[Mini Me]

Speed and Feed are critical to successful drilling. Powered drilling with small dia. bits is a recipe for failure. I use "Jobber" type drill bits made from Hi strength steel or Cobalt. Next, when getting ready to drill a hole, prick the spot you want to drill and make sure you keep the drill bit perpendicular to the work surface.......the smaller the bit diameter the more critical this becomes. any side load will snap a bit with minimum pressure if it is not kept vertical. Finally, when you start to drill allow the bit on the prick mark to find its center, once you see that material is starting to travel up the flutes pressure may be increased (slightly) to allow the bit to cut more aggressively.....too much pressure and the bit will try to bind....if you feel it starting to bind, reverse your direction to allow any chips to clear out of the flutes, then continue on.
Happy Drilling!

[yak face]

As said above Los , the PCB drills are great , easily available on ebay . The assorted set is very useful , just have to be VERY careful with the tiny ones , they snap as soon as you look at them ! Personally I dont usually use power tools with them , normally for plastic just using your fingers is enough to drill the hole . If ive got a lot of holes to do then i might get the pin vice out .

[Panzerwrecker]

I'm mainly going to be using them to open up small holes in 3D printed material and definately not with a dremel. I manage down to 0.5mm in my pin vise but the kit I am working on has lots of 0.3 and 0.2 holes that need opening up to take tiny pins and bolts. Broke my last 0.3mm bits last night and figured I need ones that have a shank that will give me some grip to turn by hand.

The advise is good about buying sets of the most popular smaller sizes as well as multi sized sets

Thanks guys