Study on a desktop machine tool for micromilling

Mechanical micromilling is the key technique for the fabrications of high quality miniaturized components with nano-level surface roughness by only one-time workpiece setup. Micromilling machine tool is the prerequisite for this technique. A three-axis desktop micromilling machine tool has been developed and evaluated in the paper. The analysis shows that the stiffness of individual part affects the dynamics of the whole machine tool with different magnitudes and can be identified for the accurate assembling purpose. Experiments testify micromachining feasibility of the developed three-axis desktop machine tool. Further micromilling experiments are conducted on the brass material H59 which is widely used in fluid components. It turns out that the radial depth of cut affects the surface roughness most greatly in top surface micromilling of brass H59. The feed and the radial depth of cut have less significance on that.