A cam provides almost any desired translating or oscillating motions with its simple structure and good dynamic characteristics, therefore it is widely used in many types of machines. However, the design and manufacture of cams is complicated and accurate engineering task which requires considerable times and much cost especially in manufacturing spatial cams.
Nowadays, although using 3 axes NC milling machine has become common, it is a still difficult job and, moreover, a secret to reveal the process of manufacturing spatial cams. By reason that is described before, there are strong needs to develop general machine which can manufacture spatial cams more easily.
The reconfigurable system is developed to satisfy those requirements, and also applicable to manufacturing various types of cams.
This system is composed of a reconfigurable device, an application program and an extra milling machine. The device has a translational axis and two rotational axes, and one of rotational axes can be changed in its direction to trace the follower motion of each cam. Since it has no spindle, it is mounted on the table of the general milling machine, and can be dismounted easily, so that the milling machine is also available for other jobs.
For the control, a personal computer is used as PC based NC, and which has an application program developed for designing and manufacturing cams in this study.
Using this system, it is possible to manufacture 4 planar cams and 4 spatial cams more easily and efficiently at a low cost with simultaneous 2 axes control by tracing follower motion.
