Microelectronic Engineering 87 (2010) 1475–1478

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Microelectronic Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mee

Fabrication of micro ball joint by using micro-EDM and electroforming

Chang-Sheng Lin a, Yunn-Shiuan Liao a,*, Yi-Ting Cheng b, Yunn-Cheng Lai c
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan
b
Nano Technology Research Center, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Hsinchu 310, Taiwan
c
Department of Mechatronic Technology, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 106, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Miniature products are useful in present-day industrial applications. In the area of micro machine, micro
Received 10 September 2009 transmissions and linkages are needed. The micro transmissions such as gear and rack can be made by
Received in revised form 16 November 2009 wire-cut, electric discharge machining (micro-EDM), injection molding, etc. Comparatively, mechanical
Accepted 17 November 2009
linkages such as bearing or ball joint are much difficult to be manufactured due to the need of assembly.
Available online 23 November 2009
In this paper, a technique to fabricate micro ball joint and bearings by micro-EDM and electroforming is
proposed. The electrode is first taken as a workpiece and is machined by wire electro-discharge grinding
Keywords:
(WEDG) to form a round ball at its free end. This is followed by coating a removable conductive layer on
Micro ball joint
Micro-EDM
its surface. Electroforming is then applied to fabricate the shell for the ball socket. After washing away the
Electroforming sacrificial layer the micro ball joint is obtained. Micro bearings can be manufactured by similar proce-
dures. By applying the proposed approach a micro ball joint contains tungsten carbide rod with ball
and the shell of the ball is fabricated successfully. The whole component is less than 500 lm in dimen-
sions. Testing of the finished micro ball joint proves that it functions properly. Using this technique, many
micro machine applications such as micro robot, micro robotic arm and micro stage can be realized.
Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Products tend to be lighter, thinner and smaller in recent years.
Many advantages arise when a part is miniaturized, such as energy
and space savings, accelerating chemical reactions, attractive
appearance, cost effectiveness, etc. Miniature products are espe-
cially useful in present-day IC, communication and biotechnology
industries. There have been many processes, for example micro
milling, drilling, turning, micro-EDM, micro wire-cut, LIGA, lithog-
raphy, etc. applied for fabricating miniaturized parts. However, it
becomes increasingly difficult to manufacture a 3D structure or a
free form surface, especially when the minimum feature size is
down to micro or nanometer. Micro transmissions and linkages
are in great demand in micro machine field. These complex mi-
cro-size components are not easy if not impossible to be fabricated.
Though micro transmissions such as gears and rack can be made by
many manufacturing processes such as wire-cut [1,2], micro-EDM
[3], injection molding, etc. But assembly of these micro compo-
nents is an inevitable but difficult to solve problem. Recently, var-
ious assembly technologies have been developed. However,
manufacturing of mechanical linkage parts such as ball joints is
much harder due to lacking of the assembly technique. Traditional
assembly processes for manufacturing ball joints are not suited to
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 2 23660443; fax: +886 2 33664513.
E-mail address: liaoys@ntu.edu.tw (Y.-S. Liao).
miniaturization case. For example, forcing the ball into the socket
is not allowed because the micro components are not strong en-
ough to withstand the deformation involved. Besides, it is difficult
to fabricate either the micro ball end or the ball socket, especially
the ball socket because it is a hollow part.
In this paper, a technique to fabricate micro ball joint by micro-
EDM and electroforming is proposed. Experiments are carried out
to verify the proposed approach.
2. System
The main manufacturing tool is a multi-function micro CNC ma-
chine developed in our laboratory [1]. The schematic diagram of
the machine and the partial magnification of the machining area
are shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. The CNC machine includes two main
parts: the control system and the machining mechanism. Three
high precision stages are used for X, Y and Z axes movement. They
allow the machine to have a resolution of 0.1 lm and achieve a
positioning accuracy of better than 1 lm. The well-known wire
electro-discharge grinding (WEDG) [4] unit is installed on the
working tank for the fabrication of various micro electrodes. A
microscope is used to facilitate machining manipulation of the
operator, and to provide on-line monitoring of the process. The mi-
cro workpiece or tool is held by a precision collet, which in turn is
mounted on the spindle driven by the servomotor. EDM fluid is
sprayed on the workpiece from the nozzle. The RC circuit is taken

0167-9317/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.mee.2009.11.087
1476 C.-S. Lin et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 87 (2010) 1475–1478

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the machine.

Fig. 4. The tungsten carbide rod with a round ball after machining by WEDG.

Fig. 5. The workpiece after coating of the sacrificial material.

Fig. 2. Partial magnification of the machining area.

Fig. 6. The tungsten carbide rod after electroforming.

for the power supply of micro-EDM. For the electroforming pro-

cess, an independent tank and power circuit are used so that the
EDM fluid will not mix with electroforming solution.

3. Experimental procedures

The procedures in manufacturing a micro ball joint are illus-

Fig. 3. Procedures of the fabrication of a micro ball joint. trated in Fig. 3. First, the tungsten carbide electrode is machined
 C.-S. Lin et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 87 (2010) 1475–1478 1477

Table 1
Machining parameters.

EDM circuit RC type

Voltage 70–100 (V)
Capacitance 1000 (PF) rough machining
100 (PF) finish machining
Electrode Tungsten Carbide
Electrode Diameter 100–300 (lm)
Working fluid Kerosene

Table 2
Ingredients and properties of the solution used for electroforming.

Ingredients/properties Range
Ni(NH2SO3)2
4H2O 450–550 (ml/l)
NiCl2
6H2O 5–7 (g/l)
H3BO3 38–45 (g/l)
Wetting agent 1–2 (ml/l)
Working temperature 42–45 (°C)
Fig. 7. The finished micro ball joint.
pH 3.8–4.2

Fig. 8. The motion of the micro ball joint (the rod with the ball is fixed and only the shell is rotated).
1478 C.-S. Lin et al. / Microelectronic Engineering 87 (2010) 1475–1478
Fig. 9. The finished micro bearing.
by WEDG to from a round ball at the end of a rod (Fig. 3a). Machin-
ing parameters are given in Table 1. After the workpiece is cleaned,
a removable conductive layer worked as the sacrificial material is
coated on its end part (Fig. 3b). Here the lacquer with conductive
silver particle is chosen as the sacrificial material because it is easy
to obtain (for instance, from trace repair conductive pen used in
printed circuit boards) and will not dissolve during the electro-
forming process. Furthermore, it can be removed easily after all
the procedures. The thickness of the layer can be several microns
depending on the need and re-coating times.
Electroforming is then applied to fabricate the shell for the ball
socket (Fig. 3c). The metal atom is piled up one by one to form a
metal skin on the workpiece surface. Nickel sulfa mate solution
is employed in electroforming. The composition, temperature, pH
value, and the additives of the nickel sulfa mate solution should
be accurately controlled to maintain the electroforming quality.
Table 2 shows the ingredients and properties of the nickel sulfa
mate solution. A small heating pad is placed under the electro-
forming tank to keep the solution temperature. In order to avoid
the problems commonly encountered in electroforming such as
pin hole or internal stress, a very low current is chosen at the
beginning of electroforming process for better bonding strength
and fine structure. Then the current is increased with time to in-
crease the deposition rate. The voltage is 3 V and the current starts
from 0.001 A to 0.01 A. The minimum current is limited by the
power supply of the machine used in the experiment. The mini-
mum current is limited by the power supply of the machine used
in the experiment. It is found that the minimum current of
0.001 A results in deposition of satisfactory fine structure in this
case.
After the foregoing procedures have been completed, the elec-
troformed part is machine to a desired shape by WEDG again. At
last the removable conductive layer is washed away by acetone
rinsing and high frequency vibration cleaner (Fig. 3d). The gap be-
tween the ball and socket forms automatically and the movable
micro ball joint is finished without additional assembling process.
4. Results
Following the proposed procedures a micro ball joint is manu-
factured. The step by step results are outlined. Fig. 4 shows a tung-
sten carbide rod with a round ball fabricated by WEDG. The
diameter of the rod and the ball are 100 lm and 290 lm, respec-
tively. The brighter layer at the end part vaguely seen in Fig. 5 is
the coated sacrificial material. Fig. 6 shows the part after electro-
forming process. The finished micro ball joint (rod with a ball
and a ball socket) after machining by WEDG is shown in Fig. 7.
The electroforming shell is 450 lm in diameter (thickness is
80 lm). After the sacrificial layer is removed, the gap between
the ball and the socket can be observed under microscope. There
is no need of further assembling procedures to fit the ball into
the shell to form a micro ball joint. To test if the ball joint works
properly, another rod is attached to the shell, the motion of micro
ball joint can be observed more clearly as shown in Fig. 8. It proves
that the fabricated micro ball joint has high degree of motion and
the concept of the proposed technique is verified.
Applying similar procedures a micro bearing with shaft is fabri-
cated and it is shown in Fig. 9. The outer shell is 360 lm in
diameter.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a technique to fabricate micro ball joint by micro-
EDM and electroforming is proposed and verified. The equipments
of the main processes can be easily set up in low cost. There is no
need of additional assembling procedure to form the finished mi-
cro ball joint. Moreover, other motion components such as rod
end bearing or bearing with shaft can also be fabricated by using
similar procedures. The proposed technique is expected to contrib-
ute to many micro machine applications such as micro robot, micro
robotic arm and micro stage.
References
[1] Y.S. Liao, S.T. Chen, C.S. Lin, Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering 15
(2) (2005) 245–253.
[2] C.S. Lin, Y.S. Liao, S.T. Chen, Materials Science Forum 505–507 (2006) 235–240.
[3] K. Takahata, Y.B. Gianchandani, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems 11
(2) (2002) 102–110.
[4] T. Masuzawa, M. Fujino, Annals of the CIRP 34 (1) (1985) 431–434.