Circuit Board Drill Templates

[rgsparber]

For homemade PCBs, I've always done the layout with an etched hole in the center of the pads. It does indeed help with drill alignment. But, very small drill bits flex and wonder sometimes, especially if I'm not being careful. If there a lot of holes to drill, I tend to get sloppy towards the end. It is good enough for most components though, even IC pins. But as you noted, sometimes more accuracy is needed.

It's probably been 3 years now, but the last board I did, I, sent to a fab house in China, and for just a few dollars, I got 5-blank pcbs complete with silkscreen. The quality was excellent, and best of all, I did not have to deal with the etching solution. The only complaint was it took a couple of weeks. For $20 more, I could've had the PCBs in in about 4-days, but that was double the cost of the PCBs themselves.

I didn't provide any context. These boards are etched by my students so they can understand the process. They also solder in all components and end up with a flight data recorder which is used during the rest of the year.

Given the technique demonstrated in the video, they can etch a board and drill it in a few hours. During post-mortems of the class, this lab is listed as the most fun. Well, except for one guy that was only interested in software and theory.

Rick