Electrochemical machining (ECM) has been rarely applied in micromachining because of the difficulty in controlling machined
shape. This research work aims to develop an experimental equipment to carry out in depth research on micro
electrochemical machining (micro-ECM) and explore the feasibility of applying ECM to micromachining. Lower machining voltage, lower passivity electrolyte concentration, high frequency short pulse power supply and micro rotating tool electrode at high speed have been synthetically used to localize the dissolution area during ECM, thus the machining gap can be kept at a very small value, and the better resolution of machined shape is achieved by using a novel designed electrode gap control system and the effective utilization of ECM for micromachining is fulfilled. Micro tool electrodes can also be fabricated by micro electro discharge machining (EDM) on the same machine tool. The experiments on micro-hole drilling and microstructure milling by micro-ECM on stainless steel plate are conducted. At different sound parametric combinations, micro hole with 65 μm diameter drilled on the stainless steel plate with 100 μm thickness and the micro structure milled on 304 stainless steel foil with 300 μm thickness with high precision are achieved. The satisfactory experimental results show the potential capability of the equipment for higher machining accuracy of micro feature and feasibility of process.