Circular knitting machine

Claim 1

A circular knitting machine, comprising a needle cylinder for rotation in opposite directions and having a plurality of axial grooves therein, a needle mounted in each groove for movement axially of the cylinder, a jack in each groove engageable with the needle and moveable axially of the cylinder, a resilient pusher in each groove, each pusher being engaged with a jack, each pusher having an end which is resiliently moveable away from the cylinder, cam means with control cams for selectively raising the resilient pushers when their resilient ends are away from the cylinder, and thus for raising an engaged jack and needle of the resilient pusher to two levels for retained and released stitches of the needle, said cam means including lowering cam for lowering the resilient pushers, a plurality of feeds around said cylinder for cooperating with said needles to form stitches, and oscillating selectors mounted in each groove and having a portion engageable with a pusher in each groove for moving the end of the pusher out of a path of the control cams, said cam means including radially acting cams for unselectively engaging said oscillating selectors with rotation of the cylinder to unselectively move the ends of the pushers against the cylinder in away from the path of the control cams, a plurality of groups of retaining electromagnets which are disposed around said cylinder and are operable to exert a retaining action on the oscillating selectors when the oscillating selectors are pressed against the electromagnets by the radially acting cams, and a plurality of selector electromagnets each located between an adjacent pair of retaining electromagnets and having a width in the rotational direction of the cylinder which does not exceed a gap between the grooves of the cylinder which contain the needles, the jacks, the pushers and the selectors, and program means for selectively activating said selector electromagnets to individually release an oscillating selector from the magnetic hold of an adjacent retaining electromagnet as the cylinder rotates in either said direction to permit resilient relaxation of the corresponding resilient pusher and thus effect a selection of that pusher.