I make cribbage boards, and use the CNC to produce them much faster. I use a 3mm brad point or twist bit in a 1/8th inch collet. My issue is drilling. It drills a perfect 7/16th but by the 400th hope or so, it only drills about a 1/4 inch or so. Is this a feed/plunge issue? Or is the 3mm bit slowly riding up?
Riding up inside the collet? Only you know that…I don’t know if you know the present Z drive only pushes with 18 lbs of force.
For fun, go to your bathroom scale with a cordless drill and push down with 18 lbs of force…I was shocked to witness how little that was. Drill force can be lessened by using a special grind.
Math wise, at the center of the drill there is no cutting…just rubbing, and this rubbing also occurs away from the center. So a nice deep split point helps.
I’m wondering are you using carbide PC Board drills?
EDIT I do a LOT of drilling with my S3, I even own a balanced drill chuck, but drill is not a fun process in the S3
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It’s either the endmill slipping in the collet or lost steps for either the motor or the belt.
Unfortunately, endmills are better at cutting horizontally than drilling, and drill bits which work well and safely at the speeds trim routers spin at are expensive.
Test your feeds and speeds and consider a CAM tool which will allow a helical plunge (though that might want a smaller endmill which is a new set of problems).
I also make cribbage boards. I use these drill bits to drill my boards. I can usually drill 2,000 - 3,000 holes before I need to replace them. I do 0.050 peck drilling 0.350 deep. They make surprisingly clean holes considering they aren’t really made for wood.
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As mentioned in another post you can always draw a sharpie line on the bit and see if the line disappears up into the collet.
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Will try those! Thank you!
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