GB223619A - Improvements in and relating to knitting machines - Google Patents

Abstract

223,619. White, A. E., (Jacquard Knitting Machine Co., Inc.). April 25, 1923. Circular machines. - To enable a great variety of patterns or designs to be formed in knitted fabrics a jacquard pattern mechanism is used to control the operation of the needles. The needles 11 of the circular machine shown in Fig. 1 are operated to form knit tuck, or welt stitches by the action of cams acting on butts on the needles and on needle-lifting jacks 22. The stitches are cast only after the needles have been raised to their highest position by the jacks 22, and this only takes place when the jacks are raised by levers 27 to raise their butts into the path of the jack operating-cam. The levers 27 are operated only when spring-withdrawn selectorbars 35 of the jacquard mechanism are interposed between those levers and camoperated plungers 33. The selector-bars are operated against the action of their springs by grooved rollers 40 acting on their fingers 38 when these pass through perforations in the pattern sheets 12 which are caused to move forward step-by-step. A series of jacquard mechanisms may be arranged all round the machine or a series of selector bars may be coupled up to and operated simultaneously by a single jacquard mechanism. In a modification the jack raising- levers are brought into operative position and raised by cams, the release of catches which retain them in such position against the action of springs being controlled by cords connected to the jacquard mechanism. This modification is shown provided also with two sets of dial needles with separate operating-cams and four yarn carriers. To enable one positioning of the jackraising levers to be used for each set of colours, those levers are shaped so as always to engagethe jack butts and are slotted on their undersides to allow the passage of the cams which correspond to the colour of yarn which it is desired to pass without knitting. The catches forholding the jack-raising levers in their forward position may be released electrically, the circuits being controlled by spring contacts resting on pattern sheets of insulating material passing over metallic drums.