The number of inventions for use as stop-motions in and about the
various machines in the cotton mill has been to a certain extent
something like the search after perpetual motion. Very available and
quite satisfactory stop-motions have for a number of years been employed
wherever the thread or sliver has been twisted so that strength was
given it to resist a slight amount of friction, but the main trouble
in the mill has been done after the sliver leaves the railway head and
during its transit in the various processes employed between the railway
head and the spinning frame or mule. Every carder or spinner knows that
where an injury comes to the sliver because the sliver is soft, but
partially condensed and very susceptible to injury, the injury is
magnified and multiplied in every successive process. Virtually the
field was long since abandoned for an accurate quick-working motion that
should be applicable to any and all the machines and to every sliver or
strand of the machine.
This invention was solved practically about two years since, and is
now being employed as applied to drawing frames, doublers, speeder,
intermediate, and slubber. It is a very cunning mechanical appliance,
too, and has found favor to a great extent in England, where several
thousand heads of drawing and speeders are already supplied.
This invention was exhibited at the Centennial in 1876, although in a
somewhat crude state. Since that time it has been materially improved,
and mechanically is very nearly perfect now. Many attempts have been
made to apply a stop motion, which should be quick in its movement and
accurate in its result, to carding engines or the card, not one of
which, until the application of electricity, was worth the time spent in
putting it on. With the electric motion, however, all this is changed,
and the electric attachments are not of necessity so fragile as to be
un-mechanical or to be not practical. The advantage has also been
taken, in a mechanical way, of using cotton as one element, and, being
non-conducting, so that no trouble shall arise from contact with the
working parts of the electrical apparatus with the cotton itself.
To take into consideration all the possibilities that exist from the
railway can to the front of the fine speeder is not needed by the
practical reader, and would be useless to any other. The principle of
this invention is the supplying of a magneto-electric current from
a small magneto-electric machine attached to the card, speeder, or
whatever machine it may be applied to which generates the current, and
this machine is driven by a small belt from the main driving shaft.
The machine in itself weighs but a few pounds, and can be driven by a
half-inch or three quarter-inch belt, and requires a little more power
than a light-running sewing machine.
One pole of the magneto-electric machine is connected by means of a rod
or wire to the machine frame upon which it is to be used, and the
other pole to the electromagnet in the ordinary way of conductivity
of current, which means stretching the wire from one to the other. An
armature is arranged so that when a thread is broken or a sliver or a
strand of roving, the armature drops into a ratchet wheel; this ratchet
wheel is made to revolve by the belt, and whenever it is impeded or
stopped in its course it acts upon mechanism which throws the driving
belt of the machine upon the loose pulley. Electrical contact is made by
a very simple contrivance, and these attachments are only to act in the
case of a breakage of a thread or strand.
As applied to a card, the calender rolls are both connected, one with
the negative and one with the positive pole; when the sliver of cotton
is between the calender rolls there is no connection, but if the sheet
breaks down between the cone and the calender roll, the moment the
calender rolls come in contact the electrical attachment operates and a
stoppage ensues; and in the case, as with the American system, where a
number of cards are used in a railway, this electric contact may be used
for either one of two purposes-to stop the feeding of cotton into the
card, or to ring a bell sharply and continue ringing it until the sliver
is put between the calender rolls again and the card set to delivering
cotton.
In drawing frames it may be attached so that, in the case of a breakage
between the front roll and the calender roll, the electric machine acts;
in the case of a lap upon one of the rolls or one end of the roll, or
in case of breakage of the sliver at the back of the machine, in either
case a stoppage would be instantly produced.
In being applied to the slubber a breakage either at the front or back
can be arranged for. Upon intermediates the breakage of either one of
the strands, if the machine was running two into one, from the creel to
the roller, would cause the stoppage of the machine, or the breaking or
tangling of ends between the front roll and the nose of the flier.
There are many other places where this motion can be applied. With
mechanical means we require motion; with electricity we require simple
contact of two differently arranged surfaces, and this can always be
had by letting the cotton drop out from between the rollers; no radical
changes are necessary, and we are glad to find that this electrical
attachment is meeting with a very good success in England, France,
and, so far, in the United States, and, undoubtedly, further and more
extended opportunity will be found for this application.--_Textile
Record_.
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