Title: Automated home knitting machine

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Abstract: A home knitting machine is provided with electronic control means which function pursuant to patterning instructions on a program card and in response to the operation of control devices by an operator causing needle actuators on the carriage of the machine to be selectively operated and fabric knitted in a prescribed manner on the machine. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The invention relates to automatic knitting machinery and has particular application to home knitting machines which can be programmed to produce prescribed patterns on a fabric. 2. Description of the Prior Art Automated home knitting machines are now well known and are exemplified by the machines of the following Patents and applications: U.s. pat. No. 3,885,405 -- issued May 27, 1975 French Pat. No. 2,212,830 -- Reg. July 23, 1972 Japanese Application No. 85853, laid open Nov. 13, 1973 Although such machines can be programmed to produce various patterns in knitted fabric, there are a variety of desirable control functions pertaining to the formation of patterned fabric which the existing machines can not be programmed to perform automatically. Furthermore, existing machines do not permit the operator to exercise a large measure of control over the knitting of the fabric after the initial programming. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to remedy the deficiencies of the prior art machines, electronic control means are provided in a home knitting machine enabling the machine to perform automatically a variety of control functions which an operator may prescribe by suitably marking a program card to be read by the machine and/or by operating various control instrumentalities, preferably located on the carriage of the machine, and enabling the operator after the machine has been programmed to exercise easily close control over the knitting of fabric on the machine. More particularly, the machine of the invention is rendered capable of reading and executing instructions which an operator may prescribe by marking the card, including instructions defining a design configuration for fabric to be knit on the machine, size delineating instructions for a unit design area to be formed repetitively in the fabric, instructions specifying that each unit design area be expanded an integral number of times, either horizontally or vertically or in both directions in the fabric, instructions directing that in conjunction with the unit design areas, mirror images thereof also be formed in courses or wales or in both courses and wales of the fabric, and an instruction directing a particular number of wales to be knit as selvedge without the design configuration at opposite side edges of the fabric. The machine is also provided with switches which offer an operator an alternative to the use of certain instructions on the program card. With such switches he can cause the machine to expand the unit design areas, produce mirror images, knit a selected number of wales of selvedge, invert the design configuration and background specified on the card, reverse the left-right orientation of a design configuration as prescribed on the program card and repeat a design row in fabric being knit. In addition, the machine is adapted to execute supplementary and/or modifying instructions in response to the actuation of switch means by an operator including instructions specifying the placement of a pattern between the side edges of a fabric to be knit on the machine, and an instruction directing the formation of selvedge in punch lace fabric with both the yarn and thread used in knitting the punch lace construction. The machine includes a liquid crystal display which provides an operator with meaningful information enabling him to better control the knitting of designs and to prevent defects due to operating error. The display informs an operator of the row of the program card being knit, of the number of times a given row has been selected for vertical multiplication, of the fact that the machine has been readied for automatic knitting before a card has been read properly where such is the case, of a failure by the operator to select a particular needle for a wale corresponding to an end column of a designated unit design area on the program card, and of the condition of the power supply.


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