Title of Invention | "PLATE CAM CUTTING ATTACHMENT" |
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Abstract | The present invention relates to the manufacture of radial cams from cam blanks, and more particularly to the manufacture of plate cams. The invention provides a simple, economic and efficient attachment to manufacture plate cams in conventional machines itself like milling machine, lathe or drilling machine. The attachment work.s with copying principle of the profile of master cam or template and shaping the blank in conformity with the profile. The attachment comprising a slide movable with respect to a fixed base and having rotatable workpiece carriage thereon and a master cam engaged with the roller for controlling the linear movement of the carriage to generate cam profile on the blank as desired. |
Full Text | 4. COMPLETE DESCRIPTION 1. Technical Field This invention relates to the attachment for manufacturing plate cam and typical components in conventional machines. 2. Background of Invention In general, the plate cams are manufactured using special purpose machines like Cam cutting machine, Computerized Numeric Control (CNC) machine and wire cut Electrical Discharge machine (EDM). There are a few inventions available related to plate cam cutting process (Ref: U.S. Pat. No. 2990753 and 3601005). The attachment described in U.S. Patent No. 2990753 is used to manufacture plate and cylindrical cams but here the process is too complicated as the swinging motion of the arm is converted into the reciprocating motion of the slide. To get the desired cam shape, the blank must be first marked, then roughly cut in other machines and then it can be machined in the said device which makes it a long process. As the work piece is a semi finished cam blank, the process needs other machine tools to roughly machine the raw work piece. The two perpendicular linear motions of the carriage and one rotary motion of the work piece yields curvilinear motion. The operator must take more care while reading the values in the slides during the manufacturing process since any small error may affect the shape of cam profile. The usage of large number of gear trains and drives needs external power sources through an electric motor to complete the cutting process. The attachment described in U.S. Patent No. 3601005 is used for cutting plate cam where the process describes that the profile of the master cam is first converted into a linear pattern and then scanned with special equipments like scanners and special mechanisms are used to convert this linear pattern into circular pattern on the cam blanks. The cam blank and the linear pattern are mounted on different platforms attached to the carriage and thus any small fault in the transmission system may affect the motion of the cam blank, so that the output profile may differ from the original cam profile in the linear pattern. The rotary motion given to the hand wheel is transferred to the drive shaft of the platform to convert into a longitudinal motion through more number of gears and other mechanisms. As it involves more mechanisms, the error due to wear and backslash effects of guide ways and other drives may affect the quality of the product. The primary process for the production of the linear pattern and the time for changing the pattern are more. The device is not like conventional type and it needs external power source through pneumatic drives to operate the mechanism. The device is comparatively more expensive as it needs of hydraulic devices, gear drives, oil tanks and it needs more space to accommodate the above devices. The difficulties with previous attachments were that the cutter performs two simultaneous operations both swinging and radial movement towards the cam blank thus making it hard to follow the entire drive mechanism in the path of the cutter swinging motion. More over the previous attachments are used to cut cam profiles on semi-finished blanks and not able on raw cam blanks. The previous attachments were made by complicated mechanisms and more number of machine elements used to meet the functionality. The previous attachments used were involving many transmission devices thereby minimizing the efficiency of the attachments by losing energy and reducing the quality of the product by wear and backslash effects of more number of gears and clutch devices. Also there was a lack of provisions to control the cam cutting process depending on the blank material and cutting parameters in the previous attachments. The previous attachments were only used on milling machines because it's huge components and less compactness. Also the previous attachments were in need of external power source to operate the mechanism. 3. Object of the Invention An important object of the present invention is to provide a simple but efficient attachment to manufacture plate cams from raw cam blanks in any kind of conventional machines like milling, drilling and lathe machines. Another object of the invention is to provide the attachment to produce any kind of plate cam profiles by copying the profile of the master cam or template and shaping the workpiece as desired. An additional object of the invention is to shape the cam profile by curvilinear motion of the cam blank yielded by one rotary and one linear motion. A further object of the invention is to utilize the same attachment for manufacturing of various plate cams by simply replacing the master cam only. An additional object of the invention is to promote the attachment for mass production of plate cams. A further object is to facilitate the attachment to control the cutting forces depending on the blank material and cutting parameters. An additional object of the invention is to provide a compact attachment. An additional object of the invention is to perform the cam cutting process by manual power and thus there is no need of external power source. 4. Summary of Invention To accomplish the object of easiness and simple operation, this plate cam cutting attachment is invented which consists of a single transmission unit thereby making the device more efficient. The power transmitted thus rotates the master cam and the work piece both attached in the same spindle while the cutting tool is kept stationary and rotating about its own axis. The master cam or template is engaged with the stop consists of a roller for controlling the movement of the carriage to duplicate the shape of the master cam or template on the work piece. To accomplish the object for machining any cam profiles, this attachment has the easy ability to change the workpiece and master cam of any typical profiles. Different varieties of cam profiles can be manufactured on any type of work piece material by controlling the sprig force of the attachment. The easy method of mounting the work piece with the spindle enables the attachment to minimize the loading and unloading time of manufacturing processes and promotes the attachment to mass production of cams. The spring loaded drive assembly and the control knob facilitate the attachment to maintain even cutting force during the entire cutting process and the cutting force can be controlled depending on the blank material and cutting parameters namely speed, feed and depth of cut. This attachment is too compact that it can be attached on any conventional machines like milling machine, lathe or the drilling machine. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the specification and claims. 5. Brief Description of Drawings Fig. 1 is the full sectional front view of the attachment describing the constructional details of the carriage, drive mechanism, support bearings, spindle, spring, master cam, cutting tool, workpiece and the stop plate with the roller. Fig. 2 is the top view of the attachment clearly explaining the arrangement of the spring, control knob, hand wheel and the workpiece. Fig. 3 is the side sectional view of the attachment (sectioned along the axis of the drive shaft) clearly describing about the engagement of the worm and drive shaft, slide plates located in the guide frames and the arrangement of the bracket. Fig. 4 is the isometric view of the attachment wherein the top slide plate and the workpiece are removed to show the internal parts of the attachment like drive mechanism, carriage and the arrangement of the master cam engaged with the roller which is mounted with the stop plate. 6. Detailed description of the Drawings The attachment constituting this invention consists of a support frame 11A and IIB which are preferably made of cast iron in which the support frame llA has a threaded hole at the centre whose purpose will be described hereafter. These support frames have slots at its base to mount on machine bed of any conventional machine tool. Two guide frames 12 are supported on the supporting frames 11A and IIB by fasteners as shown in the Fig. 4. These guide frames 12 each have two guide ways located at top and bottom to guide the slide plates 25 of the carriage. These slide plates 25 are located at top and bottom of the carriage whose purpose will be discussed further ahead. The carriage is a sliding member consisting of a drive mechanism in which the hand wheel 21 is mounted on the drive shaft 24 in turn keyed with the worm 22 with the help of the key 26. The drive shaft 24 is supported at both ends by two vertical walls of the bracket 33 of the carriage. The worm 22 is meshed with the worm wheel 23 which is mounted on the spindle 41 by using fasteners. The spindle 41 is supported by two deep groove ball bearings 42 which are mounted on the top and the bottom slide plates 25 with appropriate fit. The spindle 41 is a stepped shaft on which the master cam 43 and the work piece 44 are mounted. On the first stepped portion of the spindle the master cam 43 is lightly mounted with the help of lock nut 48 and workpiece 44 is tightly mounted on the third stepped portion with the help of nut 47 to avoid slippage during cutting process. At the top of the guide frame the stop plate 13 along with the roller 46 located at its center which is kept in tight contact with the master cam 43 and is fastened with the help of the fasteners. The cutting tool 45 may be from any machine tool which is rotated about its own axis and is aligned with the axis of the roller 46. The roller 46 must be of the same diameter as that of the cutting tool 45, so as to produce the desired cam profile on the work piece 44. The whole carriage is spring loaded by the helical compression spring 32 located between the bracket 33 of the carriage and slip bracket 34. Suitable grooves must be cut on the surfaces of both the brackets 33 and 34 to position the helical spring 32 in a better manner. There is a threaded rod projected from control knob 31 and is engaged with the threaded hole of the support frame 11A and is connected with the slip bracket 34 and its end with the help of screw 35 to facilitate the slip bracket 34 to transfer only the linear motion and not the rotary motion. In the use of this attachment, the work piece 44 and the master cam 43 having been placed on the spindle 41 with the help of nuts 47 and 48 respectively. The spring 32 always engage the carriage forward, there by bringing the master cam 43 in contact with the roller 46 mounted on the stop plate 13. As the hand wheel 21 is rotated manually with the required cutting feed rate, the rotary motion of the worm 22 takes place by drive shaft 24. During cam cutting operation, the attachment is mounted on the machine tool bed so that the cutting tool 45 is rotating about its axis and axially aligned with the roller 46. The rotary motion of the worm 22 is transmitted to the spindle 41 through the worm wheel 23. This in turn rotates the master cam 43 and the work piece 44 about the same axis since they are tightly fixed in the spindle 41. As the master cam 43 is rotated, the profile of the master cam 43 tends to move the roller 46 away from its position. But as the roller 46 is rigidly fixed to the guide frame 12 through the stop plate 14 and the carriage is free to slide; this in turn the carriage slides in the guide frames 12 against the spring force due to the spring 32 according to the profile of the master cam 43. The cutting tool 45 always rotates about its axis and aligned with the axis of roller 46, thus the work piece 44 also gets moved according to the profile of the master cam 43 thereby allowing the cutting tool 45 to remove the material from the work piece 44 thereby shaping the work piece 44 just by copying the cam profile of the master cam 43. By operating the hand wheel 21 continuously with proper feed rate, the cam cutting process takes place on the work piece 44 by copying the entire cam profile. The depth of cut can be obtained by adjusting the vertical position of the cutting tool 45 relative to the work piece 44. The spring force acting on the carriage due to the helical spring 32 can be varied by operating the control knob 31 according to the material of work piece 44 and the cutting parameters like cutting speed, feed rale and depth of cut. The operator has to monitor the cutting process and the hand wheel should be operated based on the metal removal rate. The attachment is too simple, compact, and precision and it can be mounted on any conventional machine tool like lathe, milling machine or drill machine with ease. And the operating principle is also same for any kind of machine tool. 5. CLAIMS 1. The invention as defined to claim the arrangement of the support frame and the guide frames; which is the base support for the entire attachment and said guide frames are assembled in their respective slots provided in the support frame. 2. The invention as defined in claim 1, wherein the said support frame has two parts welded together, the base and the vertical member; the base has two machined slots provided to mount the attachment on any machine tool, the vertical members in one of the support frame has a threaded hole to engage the threaded rod of the control knob. 3. The invention as defined in claim 1, wherein the said guide frame contains two highly precision guide ways both at top and bottom to support and guide the entire carriage; the said guide frame contains a long slot located in between the two guide ways to accommodate the worm wheel. 4. The invention as defined to claim, the construction of the carriage which contains the hand wheel comiected to the drive .shaft and in turn keyed with the worm and meshed with the worm wheel, the top and bottom slide plates and the bracket is welded together and supports the entire carriage; the worm wheel and the slide plates supports the stepped spindle along with the workpiece and the master cam arc mounted with fasteners to prevent spillage. 5. The invention as defined in claim 4, wherein the said bracket contains the two vertical side walls supporting the drive shaft and a vertical front wall holding the spring on its groove; this bracket is welded together with two slide plates at lop and the bottom. 6. The invention as defined in claim 4, wherein the said slide plate contains the four highly precision projections on both sides to gel supported in guide ways of the guide frames and provides sliding motion of the entire carriage; the slide plates contains a projection with hole to mount the bearings which are used to support the spindle. 7. The invention as defined in claim 4. wherein the said spindle is a stepped shaft has the provisions to hold both the master cam and the work piece on the same axis and the provisions for fastening them to prevent spillage; the spindle has provisions to mount the worm wheel at its desired position to transmit the motion. 8. The invention as defined to claim, wherein a roller is attached with the stop plate and this stop plate is in turn attached firmly with the guide frames; this stop plate is fixed in such a position thereby the master cam keeps contact with the roller. 9. The invention as defined to claim, wherein the said control knob consists of knurled portion for ease operation and a threaded rod portion is connected with slip bracket at its end and the helical compression spring supported at the bracket to force the carriage in turn with the master cam towards the roller and helps in guiding; a screw plugged into the slip bracket and the threaded rod to prevent the rotary motion of the slip bracket along with the rod. 10. The invention as defined to claim, wherein the process of copying the master cam profile on the work piece since both are attached on the single stepped spindle of the attachment. |
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Patent Number | 272966 | ||||||||
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Indian Patent Application Number | 1815/CHE/2009 | ||||||||
PG Journal Number | 20/2016 | ||||||||
Publication Date | 13-May-2016 | ||||||||
Grant Date | 05-May-2016 | ||||||||
Date of Filing | 31-Jul-2009 | ||||||||
Name of Patentee | SONA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY | ||||||||
Applicant Address | SONA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY, THIAGARAJAR POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE ROAD, SALEM - 636 005. | ||||||||
Inventors:
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PCT International Classification Number | B23K 26/00 | ||||||||
PCT International Application Number | N/A | ||||||||
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PCT Conventions:
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