How to make a PCB Drilling station
Making a mini drilling jig is simple and much affordable than you think.I use it to drill PCB, plywood and plastic which is useful very small projects.
Materials used:
- 1 cm thick sheet of plywood
- 1x piece of wood
- 1x piece of MDF
- 2x stainless steel rods (10 mm diameter)
- 2x springs
- 4x O screws
- zip ties
- 1x 30 V motor (I got it from an old printer with its power adapter and switch to power it)
- 4x small L joints
- GLUE: two parts epoxy and wood glue
- Tools:
- Jigsaw or normal saw
- Chisel
- Screwdriver
- Hand drill (with small bits and a 10 mm drill bit)
- Sand paper for the wood
The Plans
The Base Structure :
Use the included schematics to retrace two pieces for the top and bottom and two more for the sides to a sheet of plywood.
I used my table mounted jigsaw for this cut but a normal saw would do.
Now sand the edges and drill the holes for the steel rods .
Using a Scrap of MDF as a base, i assembled it with the L joints making sure its square.
The Slider :
It is composed of three pieces :
- 1x slider
- 2x motor holder
Cut it to length, mount it to a vice, pre-drill with a 5 mm drill bit then complete with a 10 mm, theses two holes need to be straight and parallel to each other as they are the guides of the steel rods.
Next cut two slots for the motor holder.I used with a saw then a chisel.
For the motor holders retrace the cutout plans on the plywood and make sure to know the diameter of the motor you’re using for the inner hole and cut them. After that to make it easier and to make them as identical as I can I glued them together with little drops of superglue (they need to be detached later) and cutted out the inner hole.
Assemble the slider with glue.
fix the metal rods or guides to the MDF Base.
Final Assembly :
I painted everything white to make it look nice =), added the O screws for the spring and were ready to assemble. Put the motor in place and strap it with zip ties keep them loose for now until we finish the assembly.
put the steel rods, make sure everything is aligned, perpendicular… and tighten the zip ties , mix two parts epoxy and glue the steel rods to the top and bottom pieces and the drilling station is ready.
For the drill bits am using wire connectors metallic housing to mount them to to the motor shaft .