In the application of plastic planetary gears in the lifting transmission mechanism of textile machinery, the Wintone Z33 wear-resistant and silent gear special material from Suzhou Wintone Engineering Plastics can help solve the problems of high noise and insufficient wear resistance and fatigue resistance of conventional POM and nylon materials.
The loom with a shuttleless frame is the mainstream machine among weaving machines. It has the advantages of high speed, stability, good variety adaptability, and is the preferred machine for weaving various grades of clothing fabrics and other kinds of blank fabrics. Among shuttleless weaving machines, the principle of thread insertion in the loom with a shuttleless frame was first proposed. Initially, it was a single shuttle, and later, a loom with two shuttle frames for thread insertion was invented.
The first International Textile Machinery Exhibition (ITMA) in 1951 showcased prototype looms with heddle frames, and at this exhibition, the shuttleless loom was recognized as a new technology. The heddle loom, with its good variety adaptability and relatively low price, once led other looms and was widely used in industries such as dyeing, bedding, silk weaving, wool weaving, and cotton weaving. It has now developed into a widely used and numerous type of shuttleless loom.
Classification of looms with heddles
There are many forms of looms. According to the configuration of the bobbins, they can be classified into single-bobbin looms, double-bobbin looms and double-layer bobbin looms.
Single-spindle loom
When using a single-spindle guide for weft insertion, only a long guide rod wider than the fabric width and its transmission mechanism are installed on one side of the loom. This allows the weft yarn to be sent into the shed on the other side, or the empty guide rod extends into the shed to hold the weft yarn, and then the weft yarn is pulled into the shed during the withdrawal process to complete weft insertion. In single-spindle loom weft insertion, the weft yarn does not undergo the intersection process in the center of the shed, so there will be no weft intersection errors or weft tension peaks caused by the intersection process. The guide head structure is simple, but the guide rod size is large and the stroke is also large. Due to the low machine speed and large floor space, most of them have been replaced by double-spindle looms.
2. Double-spindle loom
When using double-spindle guide weft insertion, both sides of the loom are equipped with spindle rods and corresponding guide mechanisms. These two spindle rods are respectively called the weft delivery spindle and the weft receiving spindle. During weft insertion, the weft delivery spindle and the weft receiving spindle move from both sides of the machine towards the center of the shed. The weft is first held by the weft delivery spindle and sent to the center of the shed. The two spindles meet in the center of the shed, and then the weft delivery spindle and the weft receiving spindle retreat. During the initial retreat process, the weft is transferred from the weft delivery spindle to the weft receiving spindle, and the weft receiving spindle pulls the weft over the shed.
When using double-spindle guide wefting, the spindles are lightweight and the structure is compact, which is conducive to achieving the width of the loom and high-speed operation. During double-spindle weaving, the weft at the center of the shed is reliably connected, and errors are generally not likely to occur. Therefore, double-spindle looms widely adopt double-spindle guide wefting.
3. Double-layer comb loom
When weaving with a double-layer shuttle frame loom, the warp yarn forms two upper and lower shed openings. In each shed opening, a group of shuttle frames complete the thread drawing. The upper and lower groups of shuttle frames are driven by the same power source. The weaving of a double-layer shuttle frame loom can significantly increase the labor productivity of the loom.
The loom with a shuttleless mechanism is currently the most widely used type of loom. Besides having the characteristics of high speed, high degree of automation and high efficiency of production of shuttleless looms, its positive weft insertion method also has strong adaptability to various types of yarns, and can be used for weft insertion of various kinds of yarns. In addition, the shuttleless loom also has obvious advantages in multi-color weft weaving, and can produce color woven products with up to 16 colors of weft yarns. With the replacement of shuttle looms by shuttleless looms, the shuttleless loom will become the main production machine for woven fabrics.
The warping loom is mainly designed to address the problem of thread feeding. It includes rigid, flexible and telescopic thread feeding methods. Its main products are fabric materials for clothing. Compared with other thread feeding methods, the thread feeding method of the warping loom is suitable for multi-color thread feeding and can produce products with 12-color thread feeding patterns, including various types of yarns and various types of fabrics in the past. The active warping drive can complete thread feeding for many difficult-to-feed yarns.
The composition of a shuttle loom
Opening mechanism: According to the fabric structure, the warp yarns are separated up and down to form the shed, which is used to guide the weft insertion.
2. Weft insertion mechanism: Introduces the weft yarn into the shed.
3. Weaving mechanism: It pushes the yarn introduced into the shed towards the weaving opening to form the fabric.
4. Rolling mechanism: This mechanism pulls the already woven fabric away from the fabric forming area and rolls it into a certain roll.
5. Weft supply unit: Supplies the weft according to the weaving requirements and ensures that the weft has a certain tension.
6. Racks, starting mechanism, braking mechanism, transmission mechanism.
7. Protection device: Prevent defects in weaving, ensure safe operation.
8. Automatic Weft Insertion Device: When the weft yarn runs out, it will automatically replenish the weft.
9. Multi-color weft supply device: Alternately supplies different weft yarns for interlacing, without the need for stopping.
The common basic feature of shuttleless looms is to separate the weft yarn rolls from the shuttle, or to carry only a small amount of weft yarn and replace the large and heavy shuttle with a small and light wefting device, providing favorable conditions for high-speed wefting. In terms of weft supply, they directly adopt cylinder roll packaging, which enters the wefting mechanism through the storage device, enabling the loom to get rid of frequent wefting replenishment actions.
The use of shuttleless looms is of great significance for increasing fabric varieties, adjusting fabric structure, reducing fabric defects, improving fabric quality, reducing noise, and improving working conditions. The speed of shuttleless looms is high, usually being 4-8 times more efficient than shuttlelooms. Therefore, the large-scale promotion and application of shuttleless looms can significantly increase labor productivity.
Due to the continuous improvement of the structure of loomless weaving machines, the range of materials selected is extensive, the processing accuracy is getting higher and higher, and with the development of world science and technology, electronic technology and microelectronic control technology gradually replace mechanical technology. The manufacturing of loomless weaving machines is a high-tech product that combines multiple disciplines such as metallurgy, machinery, electronics, chemical engineering and fluid power, integrating electronic technology, computer technology, precision mechanical technology and textile technology.
The jet loom detects the total tension of the warp yarn through a tension sensor and is controlled by the CPU to adjust the opening, slack yarn, yarn feeding, and the diameter changes of the warp yarn spool, thereby ensuring the accuracy of yarn feeding and maintaining a constant tension for the warp yarn. Due to the use of microcomputer technology and other electronic technologies to control the entire machine's movement, especially the automatic monitoring of product quality, the production efficiency of the jet loom has been greatly improved. However, at the same time, the requirements for the electronic control system of the jet loom are also becoming increasingly higher. It not only needs to have high performance, good stability, convenient maintenance, and low failure rate, but also needs to be able to adapt to high-temperature, high-humidity, and environments with a lot of down feathers and dust, and has strong anti-interference requirements for power supply fluctuations and group machine interference. The shuttle loom is a loom that completes yarn feeding through the intersection of the shuttle heads. As can be seen from the names, the differences in the yarn feeding methods of shuttle looms, jet looms, and water jet looms are intuitive.
In the application of plastic gears for textile machinery such as loom shafts, jacquard machines, and webbing machines, as well as various transmission gears for reducers, the Wintone Z33 wear-resistant and quiet-gear-specific material from Suzhou Wintone Engineering Plastics can help you solve the following problems:
The gears made of POM and PA66 have relatively high noise levels and lack sufficient wear resistance and fatigue resistance.
2. The PA12 and TPEE gears are too soft, resulting in insufficient torque and poor wear resistance. The torque decreases rapidly above 60 degrees Celsius.
3. The corrosion resistance of the POM and PA66 gears is insufficient, along with the problem of broken teeth. There is also the issue of powdering of the POM gears and injection molded parts.
4. The noise reduction performance of the nylon 46 gears is insufficient, and their size is greatly affected by moisture.
Z33 material, as a tough and wear-resistant engineering plastic, has the most notable features in gear applications: high wear resistance, low noise, corrosion resistance, toughness, and resistance to moisture. The typical successful applications of Z33 material include: micro-sized reduction gearboxes, electric actuators, EPS gears for automotive steering systems, massage machine gears, gasoline engine cams, mid-mounted motor gears for electric-assisted bicycles, electric shavers, textile machinery, and other transmission gears.
The characteristics and development changes of the loom with heddles
The main advantage of the weft insertion system of the rigid heddle loom is that it actively transfers the weft to the center of the wefting point without the need for any guiding devices. The rigid heddle loom has a large footprint, mainly due to the fact that the width of the heddle has certain limitations. The weft insertion system of the flexible heddle loom is highly adaptable, has a wide range of applications, and significantly increases the weft insertion rate, with the heddle width reaching 460 cm.
In the last 15 years of the 20th century, electronic computers were introduced to looms, and the microelectronic CAD-CAM system was widely applied, resulting in a perfect integration of microelectronic technology, information transmission technology and weaving technology. Many electronic devices and systems were combined with looms to become components of the warping loom. Especially, the wide application of microelectronic technology in warping looms, including the warping technology, led to significant improvements in some warping components, with smaller size, lighter weight.
Due to the wide application of microelectronic technology, the speed and weft insertion rate of the warping loom have been greatly improved. Among various weft insertion methods, such as shuttle weft insertion, warping weft insertion, jet weft insertion and water jet weft insertion systems, the warping weft insertion speed is very high except for jet weft insertion. After the 1950s of the 20th century, the warping loom has made significant progress.
From 1963 to 1999, the operating speed and weft insertion rate of the shuttle looms exhibited at international textile machinery exhibitions underwent significant changes. For example, the weft insertion rate of the flexible shuttle loom increased from 315m/min in 1963 to 2000m/min in 1999; the rotational speed rose from 200r/min in 1971 to 800r/min in 1999. The weft insertion rate of the rigid shuttle loom increased from 400m/min in 1963 to 1300m/min in 1999, and the rotational speed rose from 300r/min in 1971 to 650r/min in 1999.
The speeds of products from companies such as Bigal, Somet, Zel, Wante, Donier and Jintaiju have increased significantly. The speed of domestic beam looms has reached 504 r/min.
The goal of machine manufacturers in participating in global competition is to enhance the output and operational performance of looms, improve weaving efficiency and product quality. Heddle looms not only have significantly increased speed and weft insertion rate, but also have seen a rapid increase in loom width. After years of continuous improvement, the speed and weft insertion rate of heddle looms have far exceeded those of shuttle looms, but the width of heddle looms still cannot be compared with that of shuttle looms.
Wintone Z33, a type of wear-resistant and silent gear-specific plastic material produced by Suzhou Wintone Engineering Plastics, has the following most notable features in gear applications: high wear resistance, low noise, corrosion resistance, toughness, and resistance to moisture.
In the application of various deceleration motor transmission gears, compared with traditional POM and PA66, Wintone Z33 has better wear resistance, low noise, elasticity, fatigue resistance and anti-deformation ability. Z33 maintains good rigidity while further enhancing elasticity and toughness (this excellent mechanical property is maintained and demonstrated at -40°C, 0°C and 80°C). It can help solve the problem of gear tooth breakage and significantly reduce friction noise. After application, it is found that Wintone Z33 is also superior to many wear-resistant modified specifications of POM and PA66 (such as polytetrafluoroethylene, silicone type or molybdenum disulfide modified).
In the application of wear-resistant and silent gears for micro and small-sized reduction gearboxes, Z33 outperforms traditional PA12 and TPEE (Hercoset material) in terms of wear resistance and fatigue resistance. At the same time, it can also help solve the problem of insufficient torque sometimes encountered with PA12 and TPEE. Moreover, Z33 has a better cost advantage.
In addition, Z33 has excellent corrosion resistance and can be used in many scenarios where it comes into contact with various chemical substances in harsh environments, such as gears in PCB equipment, gears on printing and textile machinery, retaining rings and sealing rings in hydraulic systems, and so on. It has successfully replaced some application areas of expensive materials like PEEK, PA12, PVDF, PTFE, PA46, and TPEE. Moreover, Z33 has very little moisture absorption, and its comprehensive performance is hardly affected by moisture. The entire packaging of Wintone Z33 does not require pre-drying before injection molding, and can be directly injected. After injection molding, no water treatment is required.