TC-2 DEVELOPMENT

In this blog I will not spend time on technical details! My main point is to share with you the exciting experience it has been to be part of the development of the TC-2!
Here are some of the improvements we have accomplished so far:

• Increased warp density: The new TC-2 will be able to accomodate 12 modules in the depth = 72 ends per cm ~ 182 epi.
• Increased total number of warp ends: The total number of modules in the loom will be 44, corresponding to 9680 warp ends!
• Variable Warp Density: The TC-2 will be able to handle a variable warp density!
• Pick density control: The TC-2 has a motorized warp advancing / reversing allowing full control of the pick density
• The user interface will be more flexible and intuitive

16 years of production and customer feedback left us with a relatively long list of items to improve/change! The more we studied the TC-1, the more potential we saw for improvements! This was not surprising: The TC-1 went into production as early as 1995. Some of the components and solutions were even selected a couple of years before this, so 18 years ago!  

Before starting on the TC-2 development, a detailed analysis of the present loom was carried out: This was partly because we did not have exact information about the TC-1 performance! Initially, when we developed the TC-1, we had limited access to sophisticated measuring and logging equipment, or today's state-of-the art CNC multi-axis tooling machinery: Several decisions had to be made based on trial and error. It took weeks and weeks to compare components and select the ones that seemed to perform best.

The following photos show some of the analyzing that had to be done before we could make specifications for the operation of the valves.

In order to log various functions, all sorts of gadgets had to be attached to the TC-1!

The video shows a highspeed camera filming the actual opening/closing of a TC-1 valve (controlling whether a heddle is to be lifted or remain down). The core moves a couple of millimeters, and it lasts for a few milliseconds. I.e. not much of an "action" movie.