Knitting machine

Claim 1

A flat knitting machine with needle preselection, electromagnetically controlled needles and stitch transfer, comprising a pair of needle beds arranged in an inverted V shaped configuration and having tricks formed therein; needles and selectors having butts thereon received in said tricks, said butts being adapted to be positioned level with or above their associated needle bed and said selector butts being adapted to be positioned at different levels with respect to their associated needle bed; a knitting carriage including cam box means for moving said needles in said tricks, said cam box means including vertical cams for moving said needle and selector butts to different levels with respect to the needle bed, a sliding member on said bed associated with each needle and electromagnetic selection control means cooperating with said sliding member for moving the sliding member between two extreme end positions, a pair of opposing electromagnets defining said extreme end positions and having pole shoes assigned to each selection means, said pole shoes of such electromagnets being followed by diverging ramps against which said sliding members are magnetically held in either end position, and fixed vertical cams acting on two-arm levers and slackening the said two-arm levers perceptibly after the selection; said needles having two superimposed upper and lower arms, said upper arm having a butt which is adopted to be embedded in the needle bed by the action of a two-arm lever on the upper arm and returned to its emergent position by the flexibility of said upper arm, the lower arm being an extension of the support base of the needle in its trick, said upper arm having a gliding foot resting on a slide face located in an extension of its associated trick, and said two-arm lever having a tuck selector mounted thereon which is adopted to be located in different positions in order to permit manually-controlled needle selection; said cam box means having at least one knitting system means including at least one movable vertical cam, said knitting system means, viewed in the direction of movement of the knitting carriage, being preceded by a fixed vertical cam and by said electromagnetic selecting means and having a movable cam (39) in a plane which is parallel to the plane of the cam box, for defining a butt cam slot thereby to transform a knitting system into a stitch transfer system for needles containing stitches to be transferred; said knitting system means including cams movably mounted therein for movement in a plane which is perpendicular to the plane of the cam box to transform a knitting system into a stitch transfer system for needles intended to receive stitches; said fixed vertical cam and said movable vertical cams being located alternately behind each other on one and the same butt tracks of the tuck selectors, said knitting system means including a movable alignment cam in a plane which is parallel to the plane of the cam box.