Industrial Knitting Machine/Workflows

Introduction

While we look for experts to help us rebuild our knowledge of this machine, we're trying to develop our own workflows based on the manual and the basic knowledge that we still have. The workflows on this page are based on experiment and partly remembered training. You shouldn't take them as authoritative, and you should feel free to revise them if they don't seem right.

Quick start

To be added

Basic tips

Safety

• The control bar—the knurled bar that runs across the front of the machine—can be used to start and stop movement
  • Do not touch the control bar unless:
    • You intend to start the machine moving
    • You are watching the machine move and standing by to stop it if necessary
  • Twist the top of the control bar toward you to start a queued-up movement, and away from you to stop movement
  • It may be possible to start the machine moving without touching the control bar
    • For more confidence that the machine won't start moving, keep your hands off the screen and keypad below the screen in addition to keeping your hands off the control bar
• The emergency stop button at the right end of the control bar will stop the machine

Basic procedures

Turn on the machine

1. Plug the machine into the 240 V power supply (an orange box with a white front panel labeled Tan Guo TG-230D)
2. Turn on the power supply
3. Power up the machine by turning the red total power dial counterclockwise, so that the arrow on the dial points right (3 o'clock)
4. Press the green start computer button
   1. A Raynen logo should appear on the screen at the left end of the machine
   2. Once the computer boots up, the screen should show a control interface

Find the yarn spits and carriers that your pattern uses

1. Press the yarn button to open the yarn check dialog
   1. The spits the current pattern uses will be highlighted
2. Look at the spit numbers, like "3+4" or "1+6", written on the yarn carriers
3. Note the yarn carriers corresponding to the spits your pattern uses

Thread the carrier

1. Feed the thread into the left cup on the carrier
2. Feed the thread downward through the hole at the end of the nose

Feed the thread into the roller

1. On the computer...
   1. Press escape twice to reach the main menu
   2. Go into the F1 roll menu
   3. Press F2 close to start the roller
2. Feed the thread into the roller
3. You can pull the thread gently from beneath the roller to speed up tensioning
4. Feed the thread, pulling the top antenna down, until the light under the top antenna goes out
5. On the computer...
   1. Leave the F1 roll menu to stop the roller

Notes

• While the F1 roll menu is open, you can press F1 open to stop the roller and F2 close to start it again.

Load a pattern from an .HCD file onto the machine

1. Return to the top-level menu
   1. TODO: Which button does this?
2. Go into the E menu, and then the A menu
3. Plug the mass storage device into the USB port on the right side of the touchscreen
4. Verify that the files in the storage device show up on the right panel
   1. The files stored locally on the knitter are shown on the left
      1. TODO: How much local storage does the knitter have?
5. In the right panel, select the .HCD file to transfer to knitter
6. Press F3 at the bottom of the touchscreen to begin transfer
7. Verify that ${name}.HCD shows up on the right [left?] as _${name}.001_
   1. TODO: What is the relationship between the .001 and .HCD formats?

Choose a pattern to knit

1. From the "left machine menu", select F1 Pattern Load
   1. TODO: What is the "left machine menu"?
2. Confirm load success OK dialog, and verify that pattern filename is shown

Start a knit from a different column

1. Press escape from the top menu
2. In the escape menu, in the middle row, set "origin" to a new value
   1. We believe the value set is the number of the "column" the knit will start on, counting from the left

Notes

• The knitter has 200+ "columns", numbered from left to right
• Some process determines which column is used to start the knit, which can be changed
  • Physically, a change translates the knit along the x axis

TODO

• Improve nomenclature

Reset all needles to the down position

1. In the escape menu, press D Check
   1. The up needles are moved down as the machine head moves across the bed

Notes

• When a knit doesn't complete, we sometimes manually move the needles up to remove junk yarn from the bed
• This procedure is a simple way to move all the needles down again

Maintenance

Clean the needle bed

To be added

Notes

• This involves using compressed air to blow away debris

Oil the needle bed

1. Find a rag (we've been using a pink rag kept on the shelf below the machine)
2. Remove the oil reservoir, which we think should be full of sewing machine oil (viscosity grade ISO 100)
3. Dip a corner of the rag into the reservoir
   1. During the brushing steps, repeat this whenever the rag runs dry
4. Move along the front needle bed, brushing the rag upward along the selectors and needles, leaving a very light coat of oil
   1. Brush from the top selector bumps to the tops of the needles
   2. Brush from the bottom selector bumps to the top selector bumps
   3. Brush diagonally between the diagonal rows of bumps at the bottoms of the selectors
5. Repeat with the back needle bed
6. Use a dry part of the rag to wipe off excess oil

Refill the oil reservoir

1. Find the right oil (we think it's sewing machine oil, viscosity grade ISO 100)
2. Remove the oil reservoir
3. Fill the reservoir with enough machine oil to keep the ends of the hoses submerged during operation, but not enough to overflow
4. Replace the oil reservoir

Remove the oil reservoir

1. Find the oil reservoir (a translucent plastic container hanging from left leg of the machine, with two plastic hoses coming out the top)
2. Slide the reservoir away from the leg along the rails in the black plastic lid it's hanging from
   1. Pull the hoses up to let the reservoir pass

Replace the oil reservoir

This workflow assumes that you've removed the oil reservoir

1. Slide the reservoir back into the black plastic lid
   1. Pull the hoses up to let the reservoir pass

Things to investigate

• What is going on with the "main servo abnormal" message?
  • We need to capture the full message
  • Current solution is to turn off and on again
• Is there a way to set the speed of the rollers?
  • Differnt materials require different tensions
• "Yarn is not bought" error on feeder 3
  • No amount of troubleshooting has been able to determine what is tripping this error
  • The material seems fine, and dismissing the error to continue the knit works fine too
  • It's possible that this issue is specific to feeder 3
    • Try a different feeder
    • If another feeder works, eventually try to figure out what's wrong with this one