A Camshaft's Time to Shine

Comp Cams’ line of aftermarket camshafts for GM LS engines look shinier than they once did. However, that was just a side benefit of revamping its grinding operations and implementing a centrifugal barrel finishing process. The real goals, which the company achieved, were to minimize the waviness across lobe surfaces as well as remove tiny peaks of material that grinding left behind. This increased the surface-bearing area between lobes and their mating lifters to lower the stress on lobes during operation for improved durability and reduced valvetrain noise.

Also in this issue of Modern Machine Shop:

• Decisions about manufacturing processes are not the only business factors that can be improved by the insights derived from data collected by a machine-monitoring system. This shop looked at the data and found ways to improve communications and incentive programs to encourage its employees and improve productivity.
• Predictive maintenance is a promising way to save money and minimize equipment downtime by avoiding unexpected machine break downs. To that end, a CNC band saw manufacturer worked with a university corporate research center to develop an app that tracks blade life, predicts blade failure and monitors overall band saw machine health in real time.
• We should ask three questions to determine if a shop is ready for 3D printing: What kinds of material are you working with? Is there flexibility in the manufacturing or design of the parts you make? What is the part’s end use?
• The greater a shop’s awareness about how CNC features can improve metal removal rates while reducing strain on spindles and cutting tools, the better its ability to take full advantage of machine capabilities. These native CNC capabilities can improve five-axis performance.