Small Hole Drilling

A PCB board drilling company can deal with this easily. Setup charge would be high for one piece, but for many pieces, they are very good.

The thermoplastic nature of the material might limit drill speed.

I don't know of any board houses that can handle a panel of up to 48" in the largest dimension, but you are right about the precision.

https://www.protoexpress.com/content/stcapability.jsp

Yes, they can handle such panels. The big problem will be how many panels does he want. Setup could be quite costly.

People who handle 48" panels do not want to drill one,

machines

I'd love to know the name of the company can do a PCB of 48" length. We have a problem finding vendors to do our PCB's for our sonar arrays. We break the array up into multiple units. I looked at your link. No 48 inch panels that I could find.

I am not sure what is available now. I used to make boards that started out as 48" x 40" FR4, but it is all metric now and most canadian board makers have gone

P.S. Plus be able to do 16 layer boards with small enough geometries to handle BGA FPGA's.

Just off the top of my head: try looking at companies that specialise in LED lighting.

Laser. How 'clean' do the holes need to be?

http://reference.globalspec.com/references/detail?docid=5947542&doctype=4

http://www.epiloglaser.com

Maybe water jets?

http://www.globalspec.com/search/all?query=waterjet+cutting&newSearch=new

http://www.kmtwaterjet.com

Good luck with your quest.

DDUPLICATE THREAD ALERT.

Thanks guys the help is much appreciated , I did make a mistake on the size should have been .015" holes not .050 size holes. Thanks again

Punching is not a viable process at 0.050" drill by 1/8" thick material. Again, hole diameter should be at least the thickest of material, minimum.

Thats a very small hole, for me at any rate....my thoughts would also be a laser.....

Though this website demonstrates that there are even smaller sizes of drill defined WOW!!

I would lose them, or they would simply blow away..........the size is also there in inches too...:-

Metric_drill_bit_sizes

How does one even hold one for use in a drilling machine? I have to be careful when drilling a PCB with under 1mm sizes for components.....usually 0.25mm or so.....I think THEY are small!!

I'm with you on the very small hole opinion.

This is obviously not for a bit of DIY tinkering, and will need to have money spent to be done properly and precisely.

OP needs to be taking his plans and a material sample around to all the different hole fabricating service providors suggested by others here till he gets one that will work.

That many holes, do not know what the heat dis apatite would be, I would lean towards a waterjet, but, it will be expensive.

With maybe a secondary operation for clean up..

I like to add about some of the suggestions about punching, if the holes,size would even be larger so you could punch, punching distorts the material to a point that the material size grows. Punching does induce stresss in the material.

You don't say if the holes have to lie in the straight line or as a matrix. Assume it is a straight line. It then works out that the space between the holes is very close (~001 inch larger.) You would have to treat the result very carefully or it will be a case of break along the dotted line. You could probably build a device to advance the poly strip by the required amount. If the holes do not need to be clean and round perhaps an electro static discharge from high capacitance banks could be used to puncture the polyethylene. Possibly a carefully turned and hardened punch, but a watchmakers lathe would be the minimum requirement here and a good back ground in machining and hardening methods. Good luck with your quest. Would really like to know your final solution.

HDPE and lazers don't mix well. The heat to drill the hole also distorts it's shape. Water jetting will handle the job and would not be any more expensive that conventional machining, even for a one off.

www.mcnichols.com

Couldn't you do this on a milling machine or CNC?

Fix the 1/8" (3.165mm) thick high density polyethylene, to a back board of wood (or other appropriate material); which is oversized for clamping to the miller bed; using double sided sticky tape (or alternative fixing material). Then with the lowest speed and, feed rate available for the 0.015" (0.381mm) drill bit, just plod along and drill the holes. If you have the cash to throw at it, let a CNC do this work for you.

That double sided sticky tape is a good idea, except that with that many holes it may begin to release. With the amount of holes. Maybe if it was done with an end ill.

20-25 years ago, I programmed CNC routers at the shipyard, on one special project that was quite delicate, all I used to fasten some 3/16" brass down to MDF to cut was double sided sticky tape. We had to soak the part for (2) days in oil for the tape to begin to release it from the MDF so we won't damage it.

btw, That part was part of a plaque that is now in the Maritime museum in Sturgeon Bay, Wi., I was just up in that area this week-end, if I get up this in the next week or two, I'll take a picture of it and post it.

After reviewing this...... I just realized something,.... I'm getting old, if I have work hanging in a museum.....

Signed,

fossil.....