Drilling 750 Holes

Copyright 2014 by James P. Riser


In the hot summer months of Tucson I make parts to be assembled in the outdoor area of my workshop during our cool and comfortable winters.

One such project requires 750 precisly placed holes in three different lengths of aluminum alloy. The setup for this operation is shown on this web page.

The small CNC machine that I am using is the MicroProto Mill shown here.

This desktop machine is a toy by many standards but perfect for the scale of work that I do.

I am using the SuperCamXP program and hardware to drive the machine via USB. The screen of the program for the many holes to be drilled is shown below. The rectangle is the work area and the small +'s are the locations for the holes to be drilled.

On the right side of the screen are the control settings for the desired peck drilling operation to be completed. Only 7 holes (rather than the full 8) are being driled on this length of material.

At the bottom center are the various speed controls.

Below is shown the setup for drilling the various holes. The square aluminum alloy bar stock is securely clamped in two precision vises. The picture below was taken after a few holes were drilled and shows the chips caught in the newly installed stainless steel tray.

Here is a closer shot showing the square bar in the twin vises.

And here is a shot from an earlier run of this product - before I installed the chip tray

This closeup picture shows things much better.

The drill is a .070" diameter solid carbide drill.

All holes on the longer lengths have been drilled.

Here is another way to look at these holes - as chips!

These shorter bars still need to be drilled. Once completed, these bars will all be set aside until the cooler winter temperatures return.

Drilled!

Clicking here and here will link to two short movies of the peck drilling in progress.