Drilling holes in a DIY-PCB (the cheap way)

hi

i'm planing to do a PCB at home. nothing professional.
i already did a PCB some years ago (propably about four) and did drill holes in it, but well hehe, i dont remember how i did it anymore.
i think i might have drilled it with a regular driller.

anyway, i wont have to do many holes only about 10.

so, what is the cheapest way to drill the holes?
oh the board is "hardpaper" (hartpapier in german, not sure whats called in english), but its the brown one and not epoxy board.

You can make holes with a drill or with a punch. For 10 holes use whatever you have on hand.

Cheapest way to drill a hole? How cheap are we talking? Somehow I get the impression that you dont have access to a drill or dremel? At first I wasn't sure about whether or not to answer, but hey everything is possible.. I know I didn't have squat some years ago (second tip).

At the very cheapest just buy (or loan :P) a drillbit (0.8mm to 1 mm diameter or so) in a hardware store and hold it between your thumb and index finger. Then move your index finger along the thumb such that the drillbit rotates, and then move the index finger back up so it rotates backwards... and so on and so on. Careful to only touch the round upper part of the drillbit. Take your time. 10 holes should be possible in a little while or so? (You did ask for cheap :P)

Or, if you have an electric shaver, modify it to support a drillbit. This I actually did some years ago! ::slight_smile:

I used parts from a compass (at least I think its called a compass, but I don't mean the magnetic one. It's a tool for drawing circles, like this:

)

and one of those plastic connection terminals

I don't remember anylonger exactly how I did it, but I think I fastened the tip of the compass with one of those terminals (took it out of the plastic like in the picture), to the electric shaver. The tip of the compass served as the drill chuck, and I (probably) taped the upper part of the drillbit to make it thicker and fit. Maybe you can do wwithout the compass too, experiment :slight_smile: The trouble is getting it to rotate centered and not wobble too much.

How's this for cheap holes? :smiley:

I have vague recollections of drilling early PCB holes using a broken sewing needle and a hand-drill.
(the sewing needle, being hardened steel, breaks with a ragged end that is nice and abrasive.)

For a circuit with 10 holes you can use cardboard instead of PCB. That would be cheaper to drill.
Or you can even build the circuit in the air, so you don't need to drill any hole. I think this is the cheapest possible.