The installation of the CAM lock for the sheet metal cabinet door begins with precise positioning. Professional technicians need to calculate the opening position in accordance with the IEC 62262 standard. Usually, the center point of the lock core is 22±0.5mm away from the door edge. A positioning error exceeding 0.3mm will cause the rotation Angle deviation of the CAM plate to be ≥6°. Schneider Electric’s technical guidelines state that for 1.5mm thick galvanized steel plates, it is recommended to use Ø22.1H7 grade reamers for hole opening, with the feed rate controlled at 800 revolutions per minute. Actual measurements show that this parameter combination can reduce the deformation rate of the hole wall to within 2%. Meanwhile, avoiding processing defects with burr heights exceeding 0.05mm is the basis for ensuring that the rotational torque of cam locks remains stable within the range of 1.2-2.5N·m.
The mechanical control of the fastening link is of vital importance. Under the requirements of the ISO 898-1 standard, a pre-tightening torque of 5.6N·m needs to be applied to the stainless steel M5 installation screws. Over-tightening to more than 7N·m will cause the local depression depth of the sheet metal to reach 0.4mm and reduce the compression rate of the sealing rubber strip by 12%. The measured data from the automobile manufacturing plant reveals that the probability of the thread pair loosening of the CAM lock installed with a dynamic torque wrench is 83% lower than that of manual installation. After serving in a continuous 200Hz vibration environment for three years, the displacement of the lock body still remains less than 0.08mm, which is far lower than the critical failure threshold of 0.3mm.
The optimization of sealing performance needs to consider multi-dimensional parameters. When installed in an outdoor cabinet, applying a 0.8mm thick silicone sealant (compliant with UL 94 V-0 flame retardant standard) around the lock hole can increase the waterproof grade at the sheet metal joint from IP54 to IP66. The wind power equipment case shows that after the control cabinet of the Beihai platform adopted this process, under the harsh conditions of salt spray concentration of 28mg/m³ and wind speed of 35m/s, the corrosion rate of the internal circuit board decreased from 0.15μm/ year to 0.03μm/ year, and the humidity permeability rate decreased by 92%.
Pneumatic riveting technology is widely used in batch installation scenarios. The automated production lines of General Electric (GE) energy plants are equipped with servo presses, which precisely press the CAM lock housing into a 2mm thick aluminum plate with a pressure of 8kN±2%. The process monitoring system collects displacement data of 500 units per second in real time. When it detects that the press-fitting curve deviates from the standard value by ≥15%, it automatically eliminates defective products. This solution has reduced the single-piece installation time from 5 minutes of manual operation to 19 seconds, increased the assembly line cycle by 94%, reached an average daily production capacity of 2,300 sets, and maintained a yield rate of 99.97%.
Special treatment is required for applications in extreme environments. For the CAM lock installation of the lead shielding cabinet in nuclear power plants, a 3mm thick beryllium copper compensating gasket needs to be added at the root of the lock column. Westinghouse’s technical report confirmed that this design successfully absorbed the 0.7mm linear displacement caused by thermal expansion (operating temperature range -30℃ to 150℃), keeping the rotational torque fluctuation within ±7% and improving stability by 200% compared to the uncompensated scheme. It is worth noting that for such special installations, the CAM plate Angle needs to be recalibrated to 87±1° after 300,000 opening and closing tests to prevent excessive attenuation of the locking force due to plastic deformation.