Angle at start
The angle (in degrees) that indicates the location of the start of the profile zone. This angle is in standard position with its vertex the center of the cam shaft.
Lift at Start
The displacement of the follower, beyond the cam base circle, that will exist at the start point of the profile zone. The cam base circle is the smallest circle (with center at the cam shaft center) that can be drawn tangent to the cam profile. Lift plus Base radius equals the distance from the cam shaft center to the cam profile at the start point of a profile zone.
Motion Type
There are 18 types of motion that can be assigned to a profile zone by the SURFCAM cam design utility. These are Dwell, Linear, Simple Harmonic Motion, general Cycloidal, Parabolic, Cubic, 6 special cycloidal types and 6 special harmonic types.
When you are undecided as to what type of motion to use for a particular profile zone it is often useful to select the Linear type. Linear motion is usually not an acceptable type of motion, especially for moderate to high velocity cam applications. But, the cam design utility can automatically analyze a Linear type motion and turn it into one of the other more complex motion types.
A single linear type motion can also be turned into three separate motions: a complex type, another linear type and another complex type. This is done using the Auto button on the Cam Pre-Process dialog box which is accessed by clicking the Advanced button.