Micro Drill Press

Those of you who are hobbyists, whether in model railroading or otherwise, likely have some sort of pin vice which might look like one of the following.

These are handy little tools into which very tiny drill bits can be inserted. The tool is then gently turned with one’s fingers to make a hole in items such as wood, plastic or a PCB board. The operative word is “gently” – if you are not very careful it is easy to snap the drill bit, the cost of which seems to be inversely proportional to the size of the bit. Another downside to using a pin vice is that, because you are holding it in your hand, it is very difficult to drill a hole that you know is exactly perpendicular to the object you are drilling.

One of the items my friend John built with his 3D printer was a micro drill press using a modified Thingiverse design. His drill press is very useful for drilling holes in the PCB boards that he uses in his projects. With the purchase of my 3D printer in the summer of 2019 I got thinking about how useful it would be to have a micro drill press of my own. However, as I would be using my drill press to drill holes in objects of different sizes and shapes, the design John used would not work for many of my applications. For example, if the object I want to drill a hole through is 3 inches high it would not fit. I had to come up with a different design.

Turning to Thingiverse myself I found a design by “trevmas” that was published on Thingiverse on August 5, 2017 (it is thing 2469137). This design allows for the head of the drill press to be raised and lowered to different heights. Here is his design:

While I liked this design, there were four features that I successfully modified:

1. I wanted the head to be able to move even higher than in the design. While this can be accomplished by simply installing longer vertical slider rods, this tends to make the whole structure a bit wobbly front-to-back. My solution was to install a third vertical but threaded rod that could be secured tightly at the top and bottom. This prevents any front-to-back movement.
2. I wanted to have the ability to adjust the friction of the slider on the rods because, over time the 3D printed slider will gradually wear.
3. I wanted an adjustable stop so the end of the drill bit would lower a pre-determined distance for those instances in which depth is critical.
4. I wanted to have a light to shine down on the work surface. This I installed using two white LED which point down from the bottom of added bracket.
5. I wanted a place to store the chuck key, so I am less likely to lose it. The key sits in a hole at the top of the same bracket.

I purchased the complete 12-volt DC motor and zero clearance chuck for C$16.00 from Amazon. The motor and chuck are nicely finished and work very smoothly. For power I used a variable voltage wall-wart transformer which has a slider for choosing 12, 9, 5 and 3 volts. Motor speed is changed by varying the voltage.

This little drill comes in handy more often than I expected. I know the holes are perpendicular to the surface being drilled and I have not broken a drill bit yet.

Here are a few pictures.

note the bracket with the light and chuck key holder on the left