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How long things take: one to two weeks on almost everything, two to three on the heavier machines, and one item ships in a few days from a US warehouse. Australia is the same wait. Here is whyOne to two weeks. Why?
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Mikrabench Collet Drill Press — 3.175 mm

$149.00 USD
$149.00 USD $179.00 USD
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One to two weeks, tracked. Shipping is free.
30-day returns
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Description

The bit does not sit in a chuck. It sits in a 3.175 mm collet with a brass nose, and a collet grips a shank all the way round instead of on three jaws. That is the whole reason this machine exists. At 0.3 mm the difference between a collet and a chuck is whether the bit walks before it bites.

3.175 mm is the eighth-inch shank. PCB micro bits, tungsten carbide engraving bits and most rotary-tool burrs are ground to it. If your bits have a coloured plastic collar on them, they are 3.175 and they will go in. If you need to hold a plain 2 mm twist drill by its own shank, this is the wrong machine and our chuck version takes 0.3 to 4 mm.

The base is the part to look at

Two long slots through it, and a ring of small holes around a hole in the centre. That is a mounting pattern, and it is exactly the thing our smaller drill press does not have. We said so on that machine's page, in public, after we got it wrong once. On this one you can bolt a vise down instead of holding the work with your fingers.

What we have not measured: the thread in those holes, the slot width, the hole spacing. Our own machine is in transit and lands in early October. The day it is on the bench those numbers replace this paragraph, and our own photographs replace the ones below.

What we can see, and what we are only told

  • Belt drive, round green belt, stepped pulleys. Move the belt to another step and the whole speed band shifts. Five seconds, no tools.
  • Lever feed, two arms, brass ball handles. You pull it down and let it back up. There is no fine-feed screw on this one. If you need depth set by the hundredth, that is the micrometer machine.
  • The speed control lives on the power adapter, a dial marked POWER CONTROL. There is no switch on the machine itself.
  • 100 to 240 V, per the maker's own title. So mains voltage is a non-issue on 120 V American and 230 V Australian supply. No converter.
  • The plug is an open question and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The seller photographs a US plug and a European one side by side, and sells separate plug variants of the chuck model but not of this one. Which plug is in this box, we will know when ours arrives. If what lands will not go into your wall, tell us: we post you the correct adapter free, or refund you in full with the return postage on us. We also sell the Australian and New Zealand adapter.

Runout, rpm and wattage are not printed here. Nobody has published them for this machine, and we are not copying a figure off somebody else's advertisement and putting our name under it.

What the owners say, including the bad part

Five ratings, 4.8 average, every one a verified purchase. One owner: it works very well and precisely with a 0.3 mm drill, no trouble. Another, and this is the one worth knowing before you buy — his arrived with the rubber feet missing. If yours does the same, write to us and we send you a set. You should not have to open a dispute in another language over four pieces of rubber.

Where it stops

Wood, plastic, resin, composite panel, PCB, brass, copper, aluminium. Hardened steel, no. A 10 mm hole through a steel plate, no — that is a floor drill press job.

And it is a drill, not a mill. An end mill cuts sideways, side load pulls the shank out of a collet this size, and the best case is a ruined cut.

Delivery

Free and tracked, to the United States and to Australia alike. One to two weeks. We hold no stock and we have no warehouse of our own: the order is picked and posted by the supplier after you place it, which is why we give a range and not a date.

30-day returns from the day it arrives. Return postage is yours, the price of the item comes back in full.

Shipping is free on every order, to the United States and to Australia, tracked, with no minimum. Orders are processed within 2 business days.

After that the number depends on what you bought, and the line under the price gives it. Most of the catalogue takes one to two weeks, and the heavier machines two to three. We hold no stock and we have no warehouse of our own: the order is picked and posted by the supplier after you place it, which is why every page gives a range and not a date.

Australia is not slower. An earlier version of this page said three to four weeks, on the assumption that further away means longer. It is the opposite: the parcels leave China, and China is closer to Sydney than to Philadelphia. The carrier quotes Australia no slower than the United States, and it costs us less to send. So the Australian figures here are the same as the American ones. What we cannot claim is that we have watched it happen - we have not shipped an Australian order yet, and the day we have real tracking from there these become our numbers instead of the carrier's.

On the plug, we have to correct ourselves. This page used to say our supplier sells an Australian-plug version of the adapter at the same price. That was wrong, and we are leaving the correction here rather than deleting the sentence. It came from a different machine in a different supplier's catalogue. The listing this machine actually comes from has no plug option at all. We asked the supplier straight out and they answered that they fit a compatible plug for the destination country - which is an answer, but it is theirs, not something we have checked. The plug block further up this page says what we will do if what arrives does not fit your wall.

You get a tracking number by email as soon as the parcel is scanned, not before. A link that sits at label created for a few days is normal on this route.

Returns: 30 days from delivery, unused and in its packaging. Nothing is excluded - there is no rule here about sale items. If it arrived damaged or does not hold tolerance, we pay the return label. If you simply changed your mind, the return postage is yours and the price of the item comes back in full. Email support@arvonelle.com before sending anything back.

Will it plug into my outlet? Voltage, yes: the supply is rated 100 to 240 V, which covers both 120 V American mains and 230 V Australian mains, so no converter and no transformer. The plug is the part we cannot promise yet. The machine has no plug option we can select when we order it. We asked our supplier and they answered in writing that they fit a compatible plug for the destination country - we are quoting them, not claiming it, because we have not yet had one in our hands. Our sample is on order. If what arrives will not go into your wall, tell us: we post you the right adapter free, or refund you in full with the postage on us. An earlier version of this answer said the supplier sells a separate US-plug and Australian-plug version at the same price. That was wrong and came from a different machine; we are leaving the correction here instead of quietly deleting it.

Can it mill? As it ships, no. Milling needs an ER11 collet spindle in place of the drill chuck, because side load pulls a bit out of a chuck. That spindle is a real part and we are sourcing it. Until it is on the shelf we do not sell collets or end mills either.

Do your vises bolt to the press? On the $129 machine, no. We took one apart: its base has four screws holding the rubber feet and one unthreaded hole in the middle, and nothing else. Several pages on this site used to say otherwise and all of them have been corrected. Two things fix it - the 120 x 150 mm base plate, which replaces the original base and carries tapped holes, or the collet drill press at $149, whose base comes with two slots and a bolt circle already in it. The bench vises are a different thing entirely: the clamp-on ones, the engraving ball vise and the toolmaker's vise are bench tools and must not go under a spinning bit. Every page says which it is.

Do I pay tax or duty? In the United States, sales tax is added at checkout where your state charges it, and the total you see is the total. In Australia, consignments under AUD 1,000 normally carry 10% GST collected by sellers whose Australian turnover passes AUD 75,000 a year; we are well below that, so nothing is added at checkout and nothing should be asked of you on delivery. If a carrier ever asks you for a fee on a parcel from us, do not pay it - send us the notice first and we will sort it out with you. We are not going to claim we cover all duties everywhere. We cover what we control and we tell you about the rest.

What if a part breaks? For twelve months, tell us which part and we post a new one free. No return, no inspection, no photograph of the packaging. That applies in Australia too.

Can I cancel? Yes, within 24 hours, no questions. After that it is usually already moving.

Why trust a shop you have never heard of? You should not, on our say-so. Check instead that every page tells you what the tool will not do, that each product carries its own delivery number for your country, that we say which figures we measured and which we were told, and that when we get something wrong - the plug, which spindle fits, how long Australia takes - we say what the page used to say.

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If something goes wrong


If your order arrives damaged or defective, email support@arvonelle.com with your order number and a photo. We replace it or refund it — you don't have to argue for it.