| Review by kshipp | posted 635 days ago | 911 views | 0 times favorited | 6 comments |  |
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- Craftsman Laser Attachment OR20501 17-Inch Drill Press
- Brand: Craftsman | Category: Drill Presses
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I got this laser drill attachment with my drill press that I reviewed here. I’m really happy with the drill press but this laser sight is quite useless.
Contrary to its name, it does not actually drill holes with a laser. Now that would be cool. This mounts on the column of the drill press and projects two laser lines which are supposed to cross at the exact point where the bit will touch the material to be drilled.
It is, in fact, possible to set up the laser to do this. The adjustment is done by loosening a ring on each lens and rotating the beam to intersect the drill. Then you loosen two small hex screws and further adjust the alignment. The trick is holding each of those adjustments steady while you tighten them again. So you do that for each side and the laser can be set up. It took me about 20 minutes to line the lasers up in this way.
It worked good and it was really whiz-bang looking until I moved the table. If you think about a projector the image changes when you move the projector or the wall. In this case we are moving the “wall” when we move the table up or down and it changes where the ‘X’ is.
The laser might be a handy feature if you had to bore many holes with the exact same setup but I still think its easier to just lower the quill and see where it will go.
This is $40 as an add-on accessory at the Sears website.
-- Kyle Shipp, http://battleshipp.blogspot.com
6 comments so far
Tom Adamski
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309 posts in 667 days
posted 635 days ago
Thanks Kyle,
I was considering purchasing this. Thanks for the heads up. If you have to constantly adjust the lasers for different table sets, what’s the point?
Tom
-- Anybody can become a woodworker, but only a Craftsman can hide his mistakes.
kshipp
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124 posts in 674 days
posted 635 days ago
I’m not sure what the point is either. I see that on their latest high-tech drill press lasers are mounted right above the chuck which would seem to eliminate this problem because of the sharper angle. That set-up isn’t avaliable as a stand-alone right now so I would hold off.
-- Kyle Shipp, http://battleshipp.blogspot.com
Tom Adamski
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309 posts in 667 days
posted 635 days ago
It would seem that unless the laser is projected inline with the bit itself, you will always have error… Thanks again for letting us know.
-- Anybody can become a woodworker, but only a Craftsman can hide his mistakes.
PeteJacobsen
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10 posts in 653 days
posted 627 days ago
Hmmm. I would have thought it would work fine. If each laser line is in the same plane with the axis of the bit, the lines should cross on the table no matter how close or far away it is.
-- At war with my faults, at peace with my neighbors
Scott Bryan
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20712 posts in 718 days
posted 627 days ago
Hi Kyle,
I agree with your comments. I have a Delta with the same laser. It works fine when you first adjust it but it just doesn’t seem to hold it adjustment. Moving the table or vibration from operating the tool itself seems to throw off the alignment so that to use it effectively it needs to be adjusted every time the drill press is put in use. This kind of defeats the purpose of it.
-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.
Karson
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25802 posts in 1296 days
posted 626 days ago
Well mark one up for the engineers. DumA – 1. Useful – 0
-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †