Development of micro punching system

A micro hole punching system was developed and micro holes of 100 mum in di ameter were successfully made on brass sheets of 100 mum in thickness. A mi cro punch made of tungsten carbide was designed to withstand the punch load , considering the buckling and the bending moment due to possible misalignm ent error, The punch was fabricated by the grinding process with diamond wh eel. The die was designed considering the punch load and fabricated by micr o electrodischarge machining process. In this system the stripper is design ed to guide punch tip to minimize the possible misalignment. The punch was installed on a vertical stepper and the die was mounted on an X-Y translati on unit. The precision motion controller controlled all motions of the micr o hole punching system. In this study technical difficulties and solutions in the micro hole punching process were also discussed.