Ultimate Cam Clamp (Spring Loaded)

This is a 3 piece spring loaded cam clamp. When you release the clamp it automatically pushes the cam away from your work piece. Its designed with the intent for jigs for mass production glue-ups. Mount it with 2 screws on the side which is slotted so you can adjust it as necessary. 

It prints with no supports and requires only a few common pieces of hardware:

• Qty 2: 5/16" x 1-3/8" compression spring (~0.032 wire gauge)
• Qty 1: 3/16" x 1" roll pin

Jaw Profiles

I've included several different jaw profiles, but originally designed it for a jig to glue up wooden stars in one go. 

• 45 deg Internal
• 90 deg Internal
• 135 deg Internal
• 45 deg External
• 90 deg External
• 135 deg External
• Special: 36 deg External

If you need a custom shaped jaw, import the “Jaw - Flat” and then add onto the front of it. This could be something such as a semi circle to clamp onto curved surfaces.

If you have inventor, the Jaw files are parameterized and you can easily change it to any angle you need. 

Printing

I printed mine in PLA with 40% infill. On my machine it takes ~6 hours and 30m of filament per clamp.

Print in the following orientation:

Assembly Instructions

Step 1:  Print and gather hardware

Step 2: Slide spring over the insert

Step 3: Slide the jaw into the front of the housing

Step 4: Slide the spring into the jaw holes

Step 5: Compress the jaws and push down. You may have to fiddle with them but they should snap into their dovetail groove pretty easily. The jaws now spring loaded.

Step 6: Position the cam and push in the roll pin. You may need to first drill out the hole as its printed vertically and may be slightly misshapen.

Distance Limiter

The cam is designed to travel 3/8". For a jig you may want to limit this so you can have less slop when inserting parts. There's four included 1/16th holes to limit the distance the cam can rotate. Just use any sort of finishing or brad nail:

In Action

Here is a demo of it clamping a 36 degree joint. The thought is I will use 5 of these to glue up a wooden star in one go.