A COMPUTER-BASED TOOL FOR THE DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE OF AUTOMATIC LATHE CAMS

The tool tip motion characteristics required for machining turned comp onents on automatic lathes is a typical example where the compound mov ements generated by more than one cam plate are practically employed. Achieving problem specific tool tip motion characteristic requires con siderable expertise and time in designing two separate planar cams, wh ich when synchronized result in the desired turned component geometric shape. The objective of this paper is to present the analytical model s adopted in the design, development and implementation of a computer based prototype tool for supporting the design and manufacture of such planar cams employed by automatic lathes. Evaluation of this prototyp e reveals that the use of cam profile blending models and edge vector based cam milling path approach, are a beneficial way of employing com puters in industry to support the generation of cam plates that cater for profile blending problems inherent with synchronized cams. (C) 199 7 Elsevier Science B.V.