公开(公告)号：US20200255990A1

公开(公告)日：2020-08-13

申请号：US16274208

申请日：2019-02-12

申请人： Andrew Bennett ,  Silas Hughes ,  Kristin Draper ,  David Barrett

发明人： Andrew Bennett ,  Silas Hughes ,  Kristin Draper ,  David Barrett

IPC分类号： D04B15/88 ,  D04B15/32

摘要： The field of the present invention relates, in general, to apparatus and methods of knitting a material into a tubular form, where the length of such tubular form is not dictated by conventional distances between the knitting areas and the catch basins of integrated machines. In short, this invention increases the distal relationship between the needle-equipped element, which performs the knitting function, and the basin that catches the resulting tubular form of the material. The basin rotates synchronized with the rotation of the resulting tubular form. The separation facilitates the continuous production of a length of the resulting tubular form of the material. The tubular form thus can be longer than such length where, as taught in the prior art, the catch basin is fixed—as part of integrated machines—in close proximity with the element that performs the knitting. As an inventive method, the steps include (A) feeding such material into the proximity of a needle-equipped element; (B) knitting such material with such needle-equipped element to produce such resulting tubular form; (C) catching such resulting tubular form in a basin that is physically disconnected from the needle-equipped element and distanced therefrom to produce a desirably longer length of the resulting tubular form; and (D) electronically controlling such feeding step, such knitting step, and such catching step (synchronizing the catching with the rotation of resulting tubular form), whereby the rates of the feeding, knitting and catching produce such resulting tubular form that is unbuckled.