CAPUniversity

Did you know that you can create cams with fully-defined motion paths and follower types with SolidWorks if you have the Toolbox Add-In turned on? You can choose circular or linear cams with many motion types. You can select the follower track as a blind cut or cut through the entire cam. To create a Cam, Click Cams (Toolbox toolbar) or in the pull-down menus click Toolbox > Cams.
In the Cam dialog box, on the Setup tab, for Cam Type, select Circular or Linear and set property values for the cam type you selected. See images below. You can also create a cam based on a previously saved favorite cam. I recommend starting off with this so you can see how the cam is created. Once you have the jist of how the cam is created, venture out on your own be creating a new one based on your specifications. SolidWorks has a lot of great information on building the cam on their new web based help system. Check out this link showing how to create the cam motion here. Below are images of some of the Cam tool option tabs.

Once you create your cam, you may discover it looks a little rough. This is because by default it creates the cam in arc segments one by one. If you want it to be even rougher, you can un-check the “arc” option in the cam generation tab to have it generate line segments. For a smooth surface, you can convert the line segments or arc segments to a spline. To achieve this, edit the sketch of the cut that generates the cam path, then select the entire path of the cam and go to Tools > Spline Tools > Fit Spline. Here you should select that you want to contain the spline to the original geometry plus convert the original geometry to construction lines. See the images above for a comparison of the different options for generating a cam.