drill press for enclosures

[syamajala]

I've been thinking about buying a drill press for drilling holes in enclosures. I have a steel or aluminium 2u enclosure, so I was wondering what kind of drill press I should be looking for. I've seen a few benchtop drill presses on craigslist, but I'm not sure what horsepower I should be looking for to drill through this enclosure. Any tips?

Edited June 12, 2011 by syamajala

[Hawkeye]

A while ago i researched that for some time, too...

Power is usually not really the problem for "our" usage (i.e. drilling holes for LEDs or rotary encoders), precision is more of it.

It all depends on what you want to do and how good it should look afterwards.

You can buy very cheap ones, but those won´t give you anywhere the results from "pro" equipment, which is quite costly.

Also, some are "faking precision" (e.g. with laser aiming) which just is not there and won´t help a lot.

To keep things short, look for precision regarding the spinning axis (minimize diversion from the center) and the possibility to reduce the rpm for different tools.

[rosch]

also, it's good to know the distance from the drill to the stand of the press, as this is the working range. some have a very small range, which can be annoying when you're drilling a lot of bigger panels.