Design and development of a precision machine tool using counter motion mechanisms

in order to meet the increasing demand for high-quality miniature parts made of a wide variety of materials, the electronics, biomedical and optical industries are moving towards micro/nano-machining. Currently, mechanical micromachining can only be performed under very low feed rates and small depth of cut, which makes it very difficult to reacts reasonable productivity. To cope with the low-productivity problem for micro/nano-machining of high-precision molds or miniature parts, a highly accurate and productive machining center has been designed and developed in this paper. The developed machine tool is equipped with counter balance axes, and each axis is driven at its center of gravity to achieve high acceleration/deceleration without causing any vibration. This paper describes the theoretical and practical background of the design of the machine tool and its control and measurement system. Then, experiments are carried out to evaluate the machining performance of this designed machine tool. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.