Chapter 13: Getting More from Mates
Cam mate
The Cam mate creates a special instance of either the Coincident or Tangent mate. Four conditions
exist with the Cam mate:
l Coincident. The vertex on the follower mated to a cam that is created from a single
closed-loop face (spline, circle, ellipse).
l Tangent. The cylindrical or planar face mated to a cam that is created from a single
closed-loop face.
l CamMateCoincident. The vertex on the follower mated to a cam that is created from
multiple faces. This condition enables the follower to go all the way around the cam, not
stopping at the broken faces or following the extension of a single face.l (^) CamMateTangent. The cylindrical or planar face mated to a cam that is created from
multiple faces. This condition enables the follower to go all the way around the cam, not
stopping at the broken faces or following the extension of a single face.
Figure 13.11 shows both single-face and multi-face cams, along with the Cam Mate interface. The
two assemblies are available from the CD-ROM in the file named Chapter 13 Cam.sldasm.
FIGURE 13.11
Using Cam mates
If you open the assemblies and spin the cam plate, you will notice that in both cases, the flat
follower does not work very well. In fact, in the single face cam assembly, it does not work at all.
Note
Barrel (cylindrical) cams cannot use the Cam mate to create cam motion, but they do work with the Path mate.
Path mates are covered in more detail later in this section. n