US3414953A - Drive means for planetary napping device - Google Patents

Description

Dec. 10, 1968 J TOMLINSON 3,414,953

DRIVE MEANS FOR PLANETARY NAPPING DEVICE Filed April 6, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet l a a.- 2%? w W M 4 my! QJ 9| J m Eg 7 I \L' "MIMI I r11. :2 L

1 INVENTOR. n JOHN M 0. mill/MW ITIOIPIVEKS' Dec. 10, 1968 J. M. D. TOMLINSON 3,414,953

DRIVE MEANS FOR PLANETARY NAPPING DEVICE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed April 6, 1965 l zL M/M United States Patent 3,414,953 DRIVE MEANS FOR PLANETARY NAPPING DEVICE John M. D. Tomlinson, Bamford, Rochdale, England, as-

signor to Tomlinsons (Rochdale) Limited, a corporation of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man Filed Apr. 6, 1965, Ser. No. 445,947 Claims priority, application Great Britain, Apr. 9, 1964, 14,623/ 64 8 Claims. (Cl. 26-35) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE Card clothing covered rollers of a planetary napper are engaged by a gear wheel which is rotated by a driving element via a magnetic coupling. At least two variable transformers alternatively control torque characteristics of coupling, one transformer being adjusted to yield a zero raise condition, and the other to cause raising or felting. If pile and counterpile rollers are used, a separate driving element, magnetic coupling, and variable are transformers employed for each roller set. Means are also provided for measuring torque variation to indicate the amount of the raising or felting force.

This invention concerns wire card raising machines of both the single acting and the double acting type.

A wire card raising machine of the single acting type comprises a cylinder made up from a plurality of longitudinally mounted rotatable rollers covered with card clothing. In this type of raising machine the card clothing is attached to the roller-s in such a manner that the wires all point in the same direction.

A double acting raising machine is of basically the same construction as that described above with the exception that alternate rollers forming one set have their card clothing attached in such a manner that the wires point in one direction while the wires of the intermediate rollers forming another set point in the opposite direction.

Generally the rollers of one set are known as pile rollers and the rollers of the other set are known as counterpile rollers.

Generally the pile rollers have the wires of the card clothing pointing in the direct-ion in which cloth travels over the cylinder and the counterpile rollers have the wires pointing in the opposite direction to that in which the cloth travels.

A typical cylinder construction includes a pair of discs which carry bearings for the ends of the rollers and adjacent and outside these discs relative to the rollers are mounted a pair of gear wheels. The cylinder and the gear wheels rotate about a common axis. The rollers may be driven by means of belts, chains, gears or other driving means from the gear wheels mentioned above.

The cylinder as a whole is driven in one direction and the rollers are driven, via the gear wheels, in either the same or the opposite direction. The speed of rotation of the cylinder is normally constant but the speed of each set of rollers is usually independently variable.

When raising takes place by both the pile and counterpile rollers these are driven in such a way that the card wire points move at a speed other than the speed at which a web of textile material, herein referred to as cloth, is fed over the cylinder. The purpose of so arranging the speed differential is to cause the points of the wires of both the pile and counterpile rollers to enter the cloth to pluck at the weft or transversely disposed threads or parts thereof and, to a lesser extent the warp or longi- 3,414,953 Patented Dec. 10, 1968 tudinally disposed threads or parts thereof to achieve raising action.

It is found that three conditions can apply to both the pile and counterpile rollers and for the sake of convenience these three conditions will be considered with the cloth stationary.

Considering the pile rollers first the conditions are:

(a) If there is no drive applied to the pile rollers (ie the drive is disconnected) the pile rollers will rotate it a direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the cylinder and a such a speed that due to contact with the cloth, if the machine were truly friction-less the wires 01 the rollers would merely tend to enter and leave the clotf and neither tend to cause a raising effect nor to skid on the cloth. The wires, therefore, have no action and the sc called true practical zero raising conditions are attained. The same conditions will prevail if correct speed adjustment is achieved when the cloth is moving.

(b) If the rollers are now driven so that they are caused to rotate slightly more slowly than in (a) above then the points of the wires are carried forward by the cylinder and they dig into the cloth to give raising action. Thus to obtain raising action it is necessary to apply braking action to the pile rollers.

(c) If the rollers are now driven at a speed in excess of (a) and no braking action is applied then the wires merely skid or 'brush the cloth with the back of the card points and there would be, with the cloth stationary 01 moving, a tendency for the cloth to try to slow the rollers down. Although there is no raising action applied under these circumstances this is not considered to be the true practical zero raising condition in this specification and for the sake of differentiation between conditions (a) and (c) the latter condition will be referred to as negative raise.

For the sake of completeness it will be mentioned that if the pile rollers are caused to move very slowly or are stopped completely then the wires would embed themselves deeply into the cloth and a vicious raising action or tearing thereof would result.

The conditions at the counter-pile rollers are somewhat different and are as follows:

(-i) If the counter-pile rollers are driven at a peripheral speed equal to the peripheral speed of the cylinder and in the opposite sense the wire points may either tend to enter and leave the cloth or merely contact the cloth and neither tend to cause a raising effect nor to skid on the cloth. It follows, therefore, that it is also possible to obtain true practical zero raise conditions in the case of these rollers.

(ii) If the counterpile rollers are driven at a speed slightly in excess of that referred to in (i) above the wires tend to dig into the cloth to ,give raising action.

(iii) If the counter-pile rollers are rotated more slowly than in (i) above-or are stopped-the wires merely skid on or brush the cloth with the back of the points. This is not the true practical zero raise condition and for the sake of differentiation between this condition and the condition set out at (i) above it will be referred to as negative raise.

For the sake of completeness it is pointed out that if the speed of the counter-pile rollers is increased by a large amount above the speed mentioned in (i) above the points embed themselves deeply into the cloth and vicious raising or tearing thereof occurs.

When changing from negative raise, through practical zero, to positive raise, the forces acting on the rollers change, in that in condition (c) the rollers are being wholly driven by the external drive but as they are slowed down i.e., to pass through condition (a) to achieve condition (b) the cloth now attempts to accelerate the rollers against the external drive and thus there is a reversal of forces acting in the external drive. The reversal of forces becomes apparent in condition (a) and is the basis upon which the indication of practical zero raise condition is founded.

Machines have been proposed and used in which it is possible to locate the practical zero raising condition and these machines have also been used to measure the amount of raising or felting action applied. It has, however, been appreciated that a true practical zero raise condition could not be achieved due to the existence of friction of the various moving parts associated with the drive to the card rollers.

The known machines have been operaed by initially synchronizing the speed of the fabric and pile rollers as accurately as possible at the point of reversal of forces in the rollers by varying the speed of travel of these elements. When synchronism is thus achieved the so called point of practical zero raise can be indicated visually, audibly or by other discernible means. It has then been the practice to synchronize the speed of the counterpile rollers with the pile rollers and to work by speed indication from the datum point determined by speed variation. Alternatively the speed of the cloth and the speed of the counterpile rollers may be independently synchronized and indicated.

Contrary to previous opinions after the point of practical Zero raising has been located and synchronization of the elements has been achieved the important factor controlling the raising effect is not speed but the applied power required to cause the card wire points to act on the fibers to be raised.

It will be appreciated that in known raising machines the effect of friction and inertia in the moving parts is disadvantageous from the point of view of controlling and/ or ascertaining the actual force applied, and thus the work done, at the card wire points.

It is the object of the present invention to provide a raising machine in which it is possible to ascertain the actual conditions applying at the point of contact of the card wire points and the cloth thereby to make it possible to measure, control and record the power required to cause raising action.

In order to carry the invention into effect there is provided means in a raising machine to compensate for and to measure the forces which tend to prevent the rollers from rotating freely when in contact with the cloth, said means including at least one driving element, the output side of which is adapted to transmit drive to a gear wheel :lrivingly engaging, through for example, belt drive means, the series of card clothing covered rollers of the machine, :he arrangement being such that the torque character- .stics of the drive may be varied firstly to balance out fric- :ional and other forces resisting movement of the said gear vheel and rollers to allow the latter to synchronize with the speed of cloth passing over the raising machine and :hereafter to be varied to cause raising or felting to be ichieved, the amount of torque variation being measurable indicate the amount of raising or felting force being tpplied to the cloth.

Preferably the driving element is a constant speed A.C. notor operably associated with an eddy current coupling.

In one aspect of the invention the counterpile roller gear Wheel is driven by a constant speed motor and an eddy :urrent coupling, there being preferably a reduction gear, nterposed between these elements and the gear Wheel.

In a further aspect of the invention the gear wheel tdapted to drive the pile rollers is driven by a constant peed motor, an eddy current coupling and a dynamic :oupling, one element of the latter being anchored, means icing provided for rendering inoperative the eddy current :oupling or dynamic coupling dependent upon the condiions required at the points of the card clothing.

The invention will be described further, by way of :xample, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which is illustrated one form of double acting raising machine, but this does not limit the use of the invention to this type of machine alone.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic representation of part of a double acting raising machine, parts being omitted for clarity.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic illustration of some of the rollers of the machine of FIG. 1, showing their direction of rotation, the direction of movement of the cloth and of the discs upon which the rollers are mounted, and,

FIG. 3 is a block circuit diagram.

In the following description only those parts of a raising machine relevant to the invention will be referred to since raising machines per se are known.

A double acting raising machine includes a series of, for example, thirty six rollers, there being eighteen pile rollers 10 and eighteen counterpile rollers 12. The pile and counterpile rollers 10 .and 12 are mounted in bearings alternately between large spaced apart metal discs 13 to form the periphery of a cylinder.

The eighteen pile rollers 10 are each provided with a drive pulley 11a adjacent one disc 13 and the counterpile rollers 12 are provided with drive pulleys 11b adjacent the other disc 13.

Adjacent to and outside the discs 13 relative to the rollers 10 and 12 are a pair of large gear wheels 14 and 15 each of which carry spaced apart brackets 16 overlying the periphery of a respective disc 13. The brackets carry belts (not shown) which contact the pile and counterpile roller pulleys 11a and 11b. The discs 13 and gear wheels 14 and 15 are mounted on a common axle 17 with and about which they rotate, the discs 13 being driven by power applied to the axle 17 and the gear wheels 14 and 15 being mounted for independent rotation on the axle 17. The axle 17 is driven from a motor 18; if necessary through reduction gearing 19, so that any required speed of rotation of the axle 17 can be obtained.

As can be seen in FIG. 2, the pile rollers 10 rotate in the same direction as the counterpile rollers 12 as indicated by the arrows A. The cloth moves over the rollers 10 and 12 in a direction opposite to their direction of rotation, as shown by the arrow C and the discs 13 rotate in a direction opposite to the rollers 10 and 12 as shown by the arrow D.

Enmeshed with the pile and counterpile gear wheels 14 and 15, respectively, are drive pinions 20 and 21.

The drive pinion 21 of the counterpile gear wheel 15 is driven by the output shaft 22 of an eddy current coupling 23 driven from a constant speed A.C. motor 24. Any required reduction gear such as 25 could be incorporated between the drive pinion 21 and the eddy current coupling 23.

The drive pinion 20 of the pile gear wheel 14 is mounted on a shaft 26 which carries a chain sprocket 27. A chain 28 wraps the sprocket 27 and a sprocket 29 carried on a shaft 30. One end of the shaft 30 is coupled to a reduction gear such as 31 and the other end is connected to the rotary member 32 of a dynamic coupling, the other member 33 of the coupling being rigidly anchored against rotation. There is provided an eddy current coupling 34 with which is associated a constant speed A.C. motor 35, this arrangement being similar to the coupling 23 and motor 24 of the counterpile rollers 12.

Referring now to the counterpile rollers and their associated driving means, the eddy current coupling 23 is in circuit with a rectifier 36, a pre-set resistance bank 37 and a solenoid operated change over switch 38. One pole of switch 38 is connected to a pre-set variable transformer 39 (the purpose of the variable transformer 39 is to provide momentary energy to overcome the inertia of the counterpile side of the machine when starting from rest). The variable transformer 39 is itself in circuit with three further variable transformers 40, 41 and 42 being respectively the felting, true practical zero and counterpile raise variable transformer. The variable transformers 40, 41 and 42 are connected each to one pole of a three pole selector switch 43 which is connected to the other pole of switch 38.

In the case of the pile rollers the eddy current coupling 34 is in circuit with a resistance bank 44, a rectifier 45 and a three pole switch 46. One pole is connected to a pile felting variable transformer 47 and a second to a. zero raise variable transformer 48. The third pole is also connected to the zero raise variable transformer 48 so that whatever position the switch 46 is set at the pile roller eddy current coupling 34 is always energised. Shunted across the resistance bank 44 is a solenoid operated switch 49 (hereinafter referred to).

Switches 43 and 46 are ganged together with a three pole switch 50 which latter is in circuit with a resistance bank 51, a rectifier 52 and the energising coil 53 surrounding the rotary part 32 of the dynamic coupling. Two poles of the switch 50 are open and the third is connected to a pile raise variable transformer 54.

A switch 55 is provided to isolate the variable transformers 39, 40, 41, 42, 47, 48 and 54. This switch is ganged with a switch (not shown) controlling the solenoid coil of the starter for the main motor 18. An override two pole two way push button switch 56-56a is provided and arranged so that when the button is pressed the open circuit effect of the switch 55 is overriden so that the variable transformers 47, 48 and 54 are in circuit (independent of the main motor 18) and the switch 56a is at the same time opened to isolate the variable transformers 39, 40, 41 and 42.

An induction coil 57 is associated with one power feed line of the main drive motor 18 and this is in circuit with an adjustable timer relay 58 which is itself in circuit with the solenoids 38a and 49a of switches. 38 and 49, respectively, which latter are shown in FIG. 3 in the running position hereinafter referred to. A meter 59 is provided to measure the applied voltage to the winding 53 of the dynamic coupling 32, 33 and a similar meter 60 is provided across the winding of the eddy current coupling 23. The meters 59 and 60 are provided with selector switches (not shown) by means of which they can be used either to indicate voltage, as described above, or the output speed of the eddy current couplings 23 and 34.

In use, assuming the AC motors 24 and 35 are running and the switch 55 is open, and that the selector switches 43, 46 and 50 are set so that switch 46 closes the circuit to variable transformer 48, the button 56 is pressed, thereby to bring into circuit variable transformers 47, 48 and 54, and to isolate variable transformers 39, 40, 41 and 42 (since button 56a is opened).

As the main motor starting switch (not shown) is open, no current flows to the motor 18, and in consequence, no electrical energy is induced into coil 57, and hence the timer relay 58 is not pulsed. Solenoid switch 49 therefore remains open so that the full value of the pre-set resistance 44 is in circuit with variable transformer 48, switch 46, rectifier 45 and energising coil 34 of the pile eddy current coupling.

The pile zero variable transformer 48 is adjusted until the output shaft of the eddy current coupling 34 just starts to rotate, thereby indicating that frictional losses in the pile section of the machine have been compensated for.

When button 56 is released, pile variable transformers 47, 48 and 54 are again isolated and at the same time, as button 56a is also released, variable transformers 39, 40, 41 and 42 are brought back into circuit, although, since switch 55 is open none of the variable transformers are operative.

The switch controlling the main motor 18 is now closed, and hence, switch 55, which is ganged with it, is also closed. The timer relay 58 is so arranged that when current commences to flow to the main drive motor 18 the relay is pulsed to close solenoid operated switch 49 (to give a starting condition in which the resistance 44 is short circuited and thus the voltage to the energising coil 34 is at a maximum to apply momentarily the energy required to start the mechanism) and after a pre-determined time, to re-open this switch (to give a running condition). Similarly to give a starting condition as the timer relay is pulse, the solenoid operated change over switch 38 is actuated so that, firstly variable transformer 39 is brought into circuit with the pre-set resistance bank 37, rectifier 36 and energising coil 23 of the counterpile eddy current coupling. The transformer 39, is set to give an initial power output sufiicient to overcome inertia of the machine parts and thus enable the machine to be started. After said predetermined time, switch 38 is changed to the running setting, disconnecting variable transformer 39 and connecting, through selector switch 43, variable transformers 40, 41 or 42, as desired.

Since the machine has been set, in so far as the pile rollers are concerned to counteract the frictional resistance in the pile side of the machine, the rollers will be rotating under the cloth at the true practical zero condition. The speed of the rollers will be indicated on the meter 59 when this is switched to indicate speed reading. The counterpile rollers are now adjusted so that their speed is the same as that of the pile rollers, by adjustment of the variable transformer 41. This speed is indicated by the meter 60, which has been switched to indicate speed.

To cause raising action the switches 43, 46 and 50 are moved to their right hand contact positions in which 46 is still in circuit with the pile Zero variable transformer 48, the switches 50 and 43 being respectively positioned to bring into circuit the variable transformers 54 and 42. To vary the raising action of either pile or counterpile rollers, or both, the variable transformers 54 and 42 are adjusted to vary the voltage applied to the energising coil 53 of the dynamic coupling 32, 33 and the eddy current coupling 23, this change will be indicated by the meters 59 and 60 either in terms of speed or in terms of voltage difference. Transformer 54 serves to bring the braking effect on pile rollers into operation through the dynamic coupling 32, 33. It will be appreciated that only two transformers are required for the pile rollers since transformer 41 in the counter pile side of the machine provides the datum which need not be repeated since return to this by movement of switch 43 automatically controls the pile side of the machine through switches 46 and 50 by deenergizing transformer 54 and maintaining transformer 48 in circuit.

To cause felting the switches 43, 46 and 50 are switched to their left hand contacts to bring the variable transformers 40 and 47 into circuit and by adjustment of these the degree of the felting effect can be varied and again indicated by the meters 59 and 60 but in this case only in terms of speed. The transformer 47 is desirable because transformer 48 is pre-set to the zero raise condition and thus when felting (or negative raising as defined in column 2 at paragraph (0)) is required it is only necessary to raise the speed of rotation of the rollers to cause them to brush the cloth with the back of the card points. This condition could in fact be achieved without transformer 47 by increasing speed using transformer 48 but then the preset condition of the transformer would be altered and the machine would no longer be automatically resetting by mere movement of a switch. By using transformer 47 therefore, the switch 46 can be moved without disturbing the setting of 48 and thus any speed increase achieved by virtue of alteration of transformer 47 will not disturb the pre-set zero datum. When raising is required the switch is re-set to bring the rollers back to zero speed and then the braking effect is obtained by variation of transformer 54.

It should be appreciated that it is always possible to vary the action (raising or felting) of the rollers and also to adjust the switches 43, 46 and 50 to select at will any of the three conditions. The variable transformer 54 and associated elements 50, 51, 52, and 53, enable the braking effect of the dynamic coupling to be varied. As may be seen from the description at column 2, paragraph (b) raising is achieved by braking the rollers and thus transformer 54 is used to vary the voltage output and thus vary the magnetic field strength about the energising coil 53 and thus apply a braking torque to the rotatable part 32 of the coupling relative to the fixed part 33. Two of the poles of switch 50 are unused so that the transformer 54 and the elements 50, 51, 52 and 53 are not in circuit when zero raising or felting actions take place (these latter being controlled by transformers 47 and 48).

The invention is not restricted to the above details. For example, the controls described above could be replaced by other means of varying the electrical power applied.

What is claimed is:

1. A raising machine for cloth comprising a cylinder, a series of card clothing covered rollers disposed around the periphery of said cylinder, a gear wheel drivingly engaging said series of rollers, at least one constant speed motor, a magnetic coupling operatively interposed between said motor and said gear wheel, at least two variable transformers for alternatively controlling the power supplied to said coupling so as to control the torque transmission characteristics of said coupling, one of said transformers being adjustable so that the torque transmitted by said coupling establishes a zero raise condition with respect to the cloth passing over the machine, and another of said transformers being adjustable so that the torque transmitted by said coupling causes a raising action to be achieved, and means for measuring the amount of torque variation to indicate the amount of raising force being applied to the cloth.

2. A raising machine as defined in claim 1 wherein said rollers include a series of pile rollers and a series of counterpile rollers, a gear wheel drivingly engaging each series of rollers, a constant speed motor associated with each gear wheel, a magnetic coupling operatively interposed between each motor and its respective gear wheel, and at least two variable transformers for alternatively controlling the power supplied to each coupling.

3. A raising machine as defined in claim 2 wherein said measuring means includes a pair of meters, one of said meters measuring the power supplied to the coupling associated with the pile rollers, and the other measuring the power supplied to the coupling associated with the counterpile rollers.

4. A raising machine as defined in claim 2 including a power source, a circuit including said power source and said transformers, an isolator switch in said circuit for disconnecting said transformers from said power source, and switch means in said circuit for connecting 5 only said transformers associated with the pile rollers to said power source when said isolator switch is open, to allow said one of said transformers to be adjusted ta establish a zero raise condition with respect to the cloth passing over the pile rollers.

5. A raising machine as defined in claim 2 including a power source, a main motor for the machine, a resistance between said power source and said coupling associated with the pile rollers, and means responsive to starting of said main motor for momentarily short circuiting said resistance, whereby increased power is furnished to said pile coupling for overcoming the inertia of the pile rollers upon starting of the machine.

6. A raising machine as defined in claim 2 including a power source, a main motor for the machine, an additional variable transformer between said power source and said coupling associated with the counterpile rollers, and means responsive to starting of said main motor for momentarily connecting said counterpile coupling to said power source via said additional transformer, whereby said additional transformer may be adjusted to transit a surge of power to said counterpile coupling for overcoming the inertia of the counterpile rollers upon starting of the machine.

7. A raising machine as defined in claim 6 wherein said responsive means includes a solenoid operated switch for controlling the connection of said counterpile coupling to said additional transformer, a timer relay for controlling the energization of said solenoid switch, and an induction coil responsive to energization of said main motor for initiating the operation of said timer relay.

8. A raising machine as defined in claim 1 including a dynamic coupling having rotary and stationary elements, said rotary element being in driven relationship to said magnetic coupling, and said stationary element being fixed with respect to the machine frame, whereby said dynamic coupling has a braking effect on the transmission of torque by said magnetic coupling thereby causing a raising action, and means for varying the power supplied to said dynamic coupling to vary said braking effect.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,857,649 10/ 1958 Scholaert 26-34 XR 2,989,795 6/1961 Pilkington et a1. 2634 3,026,596 3/1962 Kuppers et al 2635 FOREIGN PATENTS 696,437 9/ 1953 Great Britain.

749,896 6/ 1956 Great Britain.

821,850 10/1959 Great Britain.

880,018 10/1961 Great Britain.

632,635 1/1962 Italy. 1,063,111 8/1959 Germany.

ROBERT R. MACKEY, Primary Examiner.

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