• Scam Alert. Members are reminded to NOT send money to buy anything. Don't buy things remote and have it shipped - go get it yourself, pay in person, and take your equipment with you. Scammers have burned people on this forum. Urgency, secrecy, excuses, selling for friend, newish members, FUD, are RED FLAGS. A video conference call is not adequate assurance. Face to face interactions are required. Please report suspicions to the forum admins. Stay Safe - anyone can get scammed.
  • Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Ontario GTA West area meetup is planned for Saturday April 26th at Greasemonkeys shop in Aylmer Ontario. If you are interested and haven’t signed up yet, click here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!

turning in sub nanometres

Dabbler

ersatz engineer
Premium Member
Single pass finishing an acrylic dome using a diamond tool and ultraprecision lathe:


In the comments he mentions the lathe can position in the order of .01 nanometer, and in another, it is using laser inferometry to achieve this.
 
bizarre stuff.

Machined on something by Moore....didn't know they were still around but nice to see. https://nanotechsys.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/250UPLv2-Brochure-Rev.0818.pdf

I've used an interferometer before and it could measure to a micro inch. Needed to compensate for air temp because of change in density and hence speed of light if irrc.

But this thing measures to a tiny fraction of that! I didn't know interferometers could. I nanameter = .039 micro inches and it measure to .01 nano meters! If I've done the math right, that is 3.94 billionths of an inch....wouldn't have thought it possible. .01 nanometers? Visible light wavelength is several hundred nanometers

Wow, all this going on that I'm clueless about.....I have to get out more!
 
Last edited:
Here’s a neat video on the Moore CMM that’s in use at NIST.


This machine is kind of the gold standard for accuracy of measurement and can measure accurately down to 10nm.

I imagine the 0.1nm on diamond turning lathes is the resolution of the system. The positional accuracy is probably several orders of magnitude greater.
 
I imagine the 0.1nm on diamond turning lathes is the resolution of the system. The positional accuracy is probably several orders of magnitude greater.

You are right. The spec sheet in the link says Programming Resolution .01 nm, however the motion accuracy is 12.5 nm, so quite a difference, I missed that. Its only machining to a millionth not a billionth, phht :D. I find to machine to a millionth you have hold you tongque just so....
 
I didn't spend the time you did on the spec sheet -- but the idea of building an CNC capable of a mechanical resolution of 1 millionth is mind boggling!! I'm always intrigued by the steady progress of accuracy. CMMs have gone way beyond what was considered achievable when the first came out, for instance.
 
Back
Top