I'm trying to make a drill press speed/sfm/pressure calculator.

On the weekend I was trying to figure out an easy way of estimating (rough approx at least) how much axial force (point pressure) was required for drilling a given material at a given drill diameter.

The upshot of this was that I decided to try and make a small calculator program to give not just sfm and rpm for a given material and diameter, but also a suggested drill point pressure.

I'm hoping that some people here might give it a try and suggest improvements. At the moment it's just a prototype, with petty limited choice of material, but I'd like to get some feedback on whether or not the numbers it's currently spitting out at least look feasible.

Below is a screen shot of the program. I'll post download links in a moment for anyone who wants to try it.

Here's a download link from an external server. The total download is only about 200 kB.

Here: http://web.aanet.com.au/stewart/drillcalc/DrillCalci.zip

For anyone preferring not to download from an external site (this is an program, so it's an executable file of course) then I will also provide it directly as an attachment hosted by this site. Unfortunately garage journal only allows very small zip files to be uploaded as attachments (97 kB), so this alternative is a little more tedious than using the direct download link above.

To download as "attachments only" then you'll need to download each of the three small zip files below. Follow these download Instructions.

1. Download all three parts and extract all contained files to the same (any given) folder.
2. Run the "merge" batch file extracted in the above step. This creates a merged zip file.
3. Extract the final program file "drillcalci.exe" from the merged zip file.

Remember. This option is only for people who'd prefer not to download a program file from an external server. If you want the simpler option then just download the single file in the link from the previous post.

BTW. This program is very simple and safe to run. It is completely self contained (a single exe file), it doesn't require you to download java or dotnet or anything else in order to run it. It should run on any Windows computer (from Windows 8 right back to Windows 95).

This program is completely "stand alone" and will not write or modify or install *any* other files or programs on your computer. So it is very safe to run.

I assume you found the drill force estimation formulas in Machinery's Handbook under drilling?

The drill force for a 3/16" drill seems about right.

A_Pmech said:

I assume you found the drill force estimation formulas in Machinery's Handbook under drilling?

Click to expand...

No I don't have any handbooks available. I googled for info and found a few papers. I tried to make a simplified formula from the info I could find.

The drill force for a 3/16" drill seems about right.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback PMech. Feel free to give the program a try and test other combos of material and diameters.

BTW. Hopefully the program operation is self explanatory. The input fields are at the top, you select the material and the drill diameter then click the "calculate" button and the program fills in the output fields at the bottom.

After you've hit calculate you can also modify either the "sfm" (surface feet per minute) field or the "RPM" field and it will recalculate the other fields automatically (as soon as you click the focus out of the field you modified). So essentially the idea is that you click "calculate" to give you a starting point, but then you can modify either rpm or sfm to tweak it and it recalculates automatically as you do that.

Looks like no one has been game to try my program. I'll give this a bump for the weekend. Remember, this program runs on any version of Windows.

I'm interested in members testing this out and offering any advice that might help me tweak its accuracy. If I can expand the program and make it useful then it will be free to anyone who wants it. So please test it ok.

BTW. I can compile to either metric or inch versions. I just uploaded the inch version for starters as I thought that's what most people here are more familiar with. If anyone would prefer to test the metric version instead then I can upload that too.


>>>> BUMP <<<<<