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Choosing Between HSS and Carbide Drill Bits: A Complete Guide
Drilling as a crucial process in industrial projects, choosing the right drill bit is crucial in everyone’s daily drilling process, HSS drills and carbide drills are the two most common types and they have their own advantages and disadvantages. They have their own advantages and disadvantages. Read this guide to help you choose the most suitable drill for different machining scenarios, and avoid the loss of time and money due to poor results caused by using the wrong tool.
Drilling is when a drill makes a hole in a workpiece, and while the substrate (what material you use for your drill) may not sound that important, it can affect a lot of aspects of drilling, such as the cost, what the machine can carry, how it needs to be clamped, and what materials it can work with, to name a few.
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When to Choose HSS Drill Bits
What Are HSS Drill Bits?
HSS drill bits, known as High Speed Steel (HSS) drill bits, are a special type of carbon steel composed of chromium, molybdenum, and highly hardened titanium, and are one of the oldest and most widely used types of drill bits for metalworking applications, with good toughness and corrosion resistance at an affordable price.HSS drills are suitable for drilling a wide range of materials, including stainless steel, steel, cast iron, etc., and perform well at low speeds and in manual operation scenarios.
Advantages of Using HSS Drill Bits
Wide applicability:
Brocas HSS can be used to drill a variety of materials, including steel, stainless steel, cast iron, aluminum, wood, and plastics. Their broad range of applications makes them a reliable choice across many industries.
Cost-effective:
HSS drill bits are more economical than carbide bits. They are easier to resharpen, have a lower initial cost, and offer decent tool life — all of which contribute to their overall value, making them a practical solution for general-purpose drilling.
High impact resistance:
Compared to carbide drill bits, HSS bits are tougher and less prone to chipping or breaking. Their higher structural strength makes them more suitable for handheld operations or unstable working conditions, offering greater tolerance for operator error.
Disadvantages of Using HSS Drill Bits
Durabilidad:
HSS drill bits are much more durable than standard bits, but they still fall short when compared to carbide drill bits. They tend to wear out faster, especially under high-strength or continuous machining conditions, requiring more frequent replacement or resharpening.
Moderate machining efficiency:
Compared to carbide drill bits, HSS bits have lower cutting efficiency — particularly when drilling harder materials. Their slower cutting speed can reduce overall productivity and shorten tool life.
Average precision:
HSS drill bits typically have a larger tip size than carbide bits, making them less suitable for drilling small or complex holes where high precision and accuracy are required. In such cases, carbide drill bits are the better choice.
When to Choose Carbide Drill Bits
What Are Carbide Drill Bits?
Carbide drill bits are made from ultra-hard tungsten carbide material, offering exceptional hardness and wear resistance. They are ideal for high-efficiency, high-speed machining in industrial applications.
Advantages of Using Carbide Drill Bits
Ultra-high hardness and wear resistance:
Carbide drill bits are made from a combination of tungsten carbide and cobalt, offering significantly higher hardness than HSS drill bits. This allows them to easily drill through hard metals such as alloy steel, cast iron, and stainless steel, as well as composite materials like fiberglass and carbon fiber. Their extreme hardness enables carbide drill bits to handle a wide range of materials with ease, and under the same working conditions, they have a much longer service life than HSS drill bits.
Excellent heat resistance:
HSS drill bits can maintain good hardness and cutting performance up to around 500–650°C. However, once this threshold is exceeded, their hardness drops sharply, accelerating wear. Carbide drill bits, on the other hand, can withstand temperatures up to 800–1000°C while maintaining performance, making them ideal for high-speed drilling and long-duration operations that generate a lot of heat.
Higher precision:
Carbide drill bits offer superior machining precision. In applications like PCB micro-drilling, where bit diameters can be as small as 0.1–0.3 mm, HSS drill bits are not suitable due to material limitations. The rigid nature of carbide ensures accurate and clean holes with minimal deviation, making it ideal for precision tasks.
Versatilidad:
Thanks to their hardness and heat resistance, carbide drill bits can cut through a wide variety of materials — from hard ones like tool steel and stainless steel to softer materials like aluminum. This versatility makes them suitable for diverse drilling applications, reduces downtime from tool changes, and improves overall efficiency.
Disadvantages of Using Carbide Drill Bits
Higher cost of tools : Compared to hss drills, carbide drills are more expensive per unit due to their production process, equipment and raw material prices, which makes them more costly for low-budget, low-demand projects. Of course considering its excellent performance and durability, in terms of long term project cost of carbide drill bits, definitely you are worth trying.
Greater brittleness: despite the higher hardness of carbide bits, their toughness is worse compared to hss, which can lead to a more brittle tool, which can lead to chipping and fracture of the bit under vibration or unstable machining environments, so it’s more important to use them correctly and carefully to avoid this problem.
Higher requirements for equipment: compared to the versatility of hss drill for equipment, carbide drill is more suitable for CNC machine tools and other high rigidity equipment, it is not recommended to use carbide drill in hand drill.
Explicación de los ángulos de las brocas
El ángulo de una broca afecta directamente a la eficacia del taladrado y a su idoneidad para distintos materiales. Las brocas tienen principalmente dos ángulos de punta comunes: 118° y 135°.
Una broca de 118° es el ángulo estándar, adecuado para el taladrado de uso general en metales (por ejemplo, acero dulce), madera y plásticos.
Una broca de 135° es mejor para materiales más duros como acero inoxidable, acero endurecido, aleaciones de alta resistencia y aleaciones de titanio.
Las brocas para metal también pueden tener otros ángulos (por ejemplo, 80°, 90°, 120°, 140°). Los ángulos de punta de broca más pequeños (por ejemplo, 80°-90°) son más afilados y funcionan bien para materiales más blandos, mientras que los ángulos más grandes (por ejemplo, 135°-140°) son más duraderos para materiales más duros. Sin embargo, los ángulos mayores aumentan la resistencia al corte porque la punta más plana reduce el afilado.
Advanced Choice: The Benefits of PCD Drill Bits
PCD drills are drills with polycrystalline diamonds welded to a cemented carbide substrate, which have higher hardness and wear resistance than hss and carbide drills, with a life span 50-100 times that of hss and carbide drills, and are suitable for the processing of highly abrasive materials, such as aluminum alloys, composite materials, graphite, and non-ferrous metals. For high volume production and where high precision is required.
Conclusión
To summarize, HSS and carbide drills have their own advantages. If you are engaged in light machining, and your budget is priority, and the working conditions are unstable, HSS drills are the more suitable choice.
If you are working with tougher materials and are looking for high efficiency, long life and precision machining, then carbide drills are the better choice. Of course if you are on a budget and have a larger project that requires longer tool life, we also have pcd drills available.
If you are still confused, you can contact our technical team and we will advise you free of charge.
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