cam synthesis curve

[EricSpringston]

I am trying to have a cam made straight from the cad geometry generated in Mechanism. It's a cam synthesis curve that was extruded to create the solid goemetry. Unfortunately, our vendor uses dxf files in Esprit and seems unable to use the Pro-E spline fit line to generate the CNC code for his EDM wire machines. Esprit wants to pick up on individual points and connect them with straight lines. There are not enough points to generate a smooth cam using straight lines. Is there a way to do this in Esprit? Is there a better CAM package than Esprit to use for this application? Should I be changing the export settings for the dxf file - or export some other file type altogether? Thanks, Eric S.
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[EricSpringston]

Resolution: Found a different vendor.

Aside: Also found that although you can get numbers from a Mechanism analysis, it does not actually compute the torque exerted on a cam from a translating roller follower. In fact, I ended up successfully using Dynacam instead. To import the cam geometry from Dynacam to Pro-E: I used the tabular data that Dynacam exports to Excel, stripped off all but the x-y point coordinates and imported as a spline into AutoCAD*. Once in AutoCAD, as a closed polyline, that curve can be saved and imported into Pro-E as something that can be extruded.

*Start the spline command and 'cut & paste' the coordinates into the command line. Don't forget to close the polyline. Oh, and you can change the math model AutoCAD uses to spline fit the points. I didn't need to, but you can.

Hope that helps someone out there.

Best regards,

Eric D. Springston II

Development Engineer

Tyco Electronics

Global Application Tooling Division

M/S 161-020

PO Box 3608

Harrisburg, PA 17105-3608

717-810-3492 tel

717-810-2443 fax

edsii@te.com