Knitting machine for feeding a rotating set of strands of material, such as yarn, to a workstation, where the strands are braided to form a substantially continuous wrapper of reinforcement material, around a hose core, which is fed substantially continuously for the workstation, and through it, and method for uniform, continuous and simultaneous feeding of a plurality of strands of material, such as yarn, along a series of tracks fed to a workstation of one knitting machine, while the series of feeder tracks revolves around an imaginary central axis, which extends through the workstation

摘要

A number of yarns (700) are fed along feed tacks and through guides (582:612:667:669:675) from a package supply (540) to a knitter head (800) all whilst rotating about the centre line (175) of the head. A number of capstans (620) arranged in a circular array rotate about the centre line with a first drive means to rotate the array and a second drive means to rotate in unison the capstans, each of which has its own associated yarn feed path, and all arranged to feed each yarn uniformly, and evenly to the head.