High Speed and Fine Polishing Using Linear Motor

Recently, several machines with linear motor were developed for high productivity. Feed behaviour of these machines is required high speed, high acceleration and stable behaviour for feed. Other hand, mirror surface was required for adding high quality on the most products. We thought that this linear motor drive suit well for manufacturing on the mirror surface. Therefore, In this paper, high speed and fine polishing using linear motor was investigated for mirror surface. Polishing device was firstly developed for the experiment. The device consists of the NC milling machine, the linear motor driver and the polishing head. The linear motor driver with the polishing head was setted in the spindle of the NC milling machine. A shaver (=shaving device) was substituted for linear motor drive. Epoxy resin was used for the polishing head. Process for making the head, property of polishing and the optimum polishing condition are investigated in several experiments. This system was evaluated for high speed polishing on the flat surface and fine polishing using a minute part. It is concluded from the results that (1) Mirror surface was machined by this polishing system, (2) The polishing time using this polishing system is one tenth of that of the conventional polishing, (3) Minute part which size is about a few mm was machined for mirror surface by this polishing system.