We report an ultra-precision lathe designed to machine micron-scale features on a large-area roll mold. The lathe can machine rolls up to 600 ㎜ in diameter and 2,500 ㎜ in length. All axes use hydrostatic oil bearings to exploit the high-precision, stiffness, and damping characteristics. The headstock spindle and rotary tooling table are driven by frameless direct drive motors, while coreless linear motors are used for the two linear axes. Finite element method modeling reveals that the effects of structural deformation on the machining accuracy are less than 1 ㎛. The results of thermal testing show that the maximum temperature rise at the spindle outer surface is approximately 0.5 °C. Finally, performance evaluations of the error motion, micro-positioning capability, and fine-pitch machining demonstrate that the lathe is capable of producing opticalquality surfaces with micron-scale patterns with feature sizes as small as 20 ㎛ on a large-area roll mold.
