link no. 59 customer magazine spun yarn systems - Rieter

Automation in Combing
More than 50 % market share worldwide proves it – the best yarn quality
is achieved with a combing section from Rieter. What is the situation
regarding increase in productivity and flexibility that automation in
combing by Rieter has to offer?
Fig. 1 Animation of
the ROBOlap’s function
principle. Simply scan
with your smartphone
http://bit.ly/KfH8BC
It is quite possible to combine quality and production
advantages in a Rieter combing plant and for
just this reason an investment in a Rieter combing
section is worthwhile. The ROBOlap option leads to
increased productivity on the combing machine, reduces
operator effort and improves the sliver quality.
The new sliver delivery for cans with a diameter
of 1 000 mm offers a decisive economic advantage.
In this connection, an equally large role is played by
the reduction in the number of piecers on the autoleveler
draw frame by using cans with a larger capacity.
A lower number of sliver piecers leads to an
increase in yarn quality and fulfils the requirements
of the spinning plants that place value on quality.
ROBOlap, an unrivalled system
ROBOlap is an automatic batt piecing system. The
operating principle is simple: the laps are placed on
the lap rest by one of the customer-defined transport
CONSTANT QUALITY THROUGH AUTOMATION
Sliver without piecing, CVm = 3.34 %
Sliver with manual piecing, CVm = 6.42 %
Sliver with automatic piecing (ROBOlap), CVm = 4.11 %
Fig. 2 Improvement of the CV% in the comber sliver due to automatic piecing with ROBOlap.
LINK 59 . 1 /2012
PRODUCT NEWS
systems SERVOlap or SERVOtrolley. An optical sensor
registers when one of the 8 laps is being drawn
off. The rest of the 8 laps are automatically sucked
off and disposed of. A pneumatic device draws the
new batt end onto the machine and prepares it for
the piecing process by evenly detaching the batt end
(Fig. 1).
Remarkable here is that the mean waste amount is
practically halved by automatic piecing compared
to manual piecing. With manual piecing, the operators
often tend to pull off far too much of the batt. In
addition to the increased amount of waste, manual
piecings are less consistent than the automatic piecings.
With ROBOlap, the machine synchronizes all
feed movements and thereby achieves a piecer with
a significantly better CV% than with manual piecing
(Fig. 2). The empty tubes are subsequently re-fed to
the transport system.
Since its market launch, the ROBOlap batt piecing
system has gained a greater market share and today
can be found worldwide on more than 40 % of the
combing machines sold by Rieter (Fig. 3).
In the last 15 years, a shift in spinning plants from
America and Europe in the direction of Asia has taken
place. In the Asian markets, automation was for a
long time of minimal importance. Optimizations and
rationalizations, however, are now also taking place
in these markets. Rieter sees a clear trend towards
automated combers equipped with ROBOlap.
Fig. 3 Sales distribution of Rieter combers in manual and
automatic machines with ROBOlap.
Manual Combers ROBOlap Combers
1997 - 2008 85 % 15 %
2008 - 2010 70 % 30 %
2011 60 % 40 %
Compared to a comber without ROBOlap, a fullyequipped
comber allows a 2 % higher degree of efficiency.
This is due to the optimized lap changing and
piecing processes which result in extremely short
machine idle times (Fig. 4).
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