Assembling ball-ended styli for CMM's tactile probing heads on micro EDM

This paper describes a hybrid gluing and assembling process on micro electrical discharge machine (EDM) to produce micro ball-ended spherical stylus tips for micro coordinate measurement machine's (CMM's) tactile probing heads. Combining wire electro-discharge grinding technology and position controlling function of EDM, a micro glass ball could be glued onto the cantilever successfully. The experimental results show that the roundness of the largest profile micro glass-ball-ended styli with a 0.07-mm diameter could be as small as 0.613 μm. The deviation and roundness of the stylus tips can be controlled more effectively by this gluing and assembling process. The adhesion strength of the gluing stylus tip is approximately 12 mN. These ball-ended stylus tips could be used on micro CMM's tactile probing head for micro component metrology in the near future.