Evaluation Tip Cleaning for a Micro CMM Touch Trigger Stylus Sensor

To support the manufacture of complex products, which many are made of multiple micro-parts, a traceable and accurate 3D-measurement system with sub-micron accuracy is required. This work investigates the use of a commercially-available MEMS-tactile-micro-probe for 3D-coordinated metrology on the micro-scale. It will show that probe-tip contamination may be a significant source of error for such tactile-probing systems. Even in a clean-room environment, there are many types of contaminants that may affect dimensional measurement accuracy. These mainly come from repeated contact between probe-tip and artefact material. To address this issue a number of cleaning methods are evaluated to remove contaminates from a MEMS-based-micro-probe-tip sensor.