QUILT PANEL CUTTER WITH QUILTING SYSTEM BATCH AND PANEL LENGTH CONTROL

摘要

A quilting system (10) that includes a multiple needle quilting machine (11) is provided with batch processing capability by the addition of a panel cutter (30) in-line with and downstream of the quilting machine (11). The panel cutter (30) is equipped with a programmed controller (29) that is loaded with batch information for the production, on the quilting machine, of a plurality of quilts by stitching patterns on a multilayered web of fabric (12). The batch information includes information of a number of quilts to be quilted as well as the patterns to be quilted on each quilt and the composition of the material on which the patterns are tobe quilted. Information is derived by the panel cutter controller (29) from sensors (36) on the panel cutter (30), which information is used to control the quilting machine (11) by adjusting the length of quilted material from the quilter. The panel cutter controller (29) may also operate the quilter to adjust for shrinkage in web length caused by the quilting, and to synchronize splices in the web between different material layer combinations for different quilts of the series to be quilted.