1.      All modern day looms now come equipped with on-board microprocessor computers which are used to control the electro-mechanical-pneumatic mechanisms used to produce fabric at extremely high speeds.

2.      The on-board computers collect, store, use and display at the loom many different system parameters and machine performance information.

3.      Unless the loom is equipped with a SERIAL INTERFACE CARD, significantly less data is available to export to a central monitoring system.  As an example, most new, high speed air jet looms come equipped with multiple filling feeders.   Most looms, without selvege tuckers, are able to detect a short pick, a long pick and a yarn break which occurs between the supply package and the filling feeder (known as a package break). If the loom is not equipped with a serial interface card, all filling stops from all filling feeders get reported to the central monitoring system as “filling stop.”  If a loom were equipped with four (4) filling feeders and did not have a serial interface card, twelve (12) different filling stops could get lumped together as a filling stop, and the central monitoring system would not know which filling feeder, or which type of filling stop caused the loom to stop.

4.      Likewise, if a loom is equipped with an automatic pick repair mechanism, the loom can keep up with and calculate the “Percent Success Rate” of automatic pick repairs.  Without the serial interface card, the central monitoring system cannot receive this information.   With air jet weaving, it is not uncommon for filling stops per 100,000 picks to be 2 or 3 times the stop rate of warp stops.   Therefore, the more information management has relative to filling stops should more than pay for the serial interface card in short order.

5.      There is a BIG difference in the wiring scheme that is used to connect to a loom with a serial interface card versus a loom that does not have such a card.  There are at least two (2) different software protocols (languages) used to talk with a serial interface card.  The most widely used is an old, obsolete protocol known as VDI. It is subject to data loss.   A newer, much superior protocol known as the CC+I protocol is now available to loom manufacturers.  Two (2) loom manufacturers (Nissan and Tsudakoma) have decided to use the CC+I protocol.  CC+I wires its protocol using a multi-drop, “daisy chain” arrangement.  CC+I wires VDI protocol with the same type of wire, BUT the wires run from a wall mounted PC unit to each loom in a point-to-point, (“star”) arrangement, unless an extra micro computer is placed at each loom.

        Unfortunately, the VDI protocol specifies that the loom is the “master” and the central monitoring system is the “slave.”  This means that loom performance data (picks, stops, etc.) is sent to the extra micro when it occurs and the data is not date/time stamped or buffered by the loom's internal micro computer.  If the loom monitoring system fails, DATA IS LOST.

        The CC+I protocol specifies that the central monitoring system is the “master” and the loom's internal micro computer is the “slave.”  There is NO NEED for an extra micro at each loom, since the loom's micro is capable of date/time stamping and buffering the loom's performance data.  Therefore, under this CC+I protocol, the central monitoring system polls each loom to collect data.  If the monitoring system is down for any reason, the loom buffers all date/time stamped data and has it available when the central monitoring system begins to poll again.  Therefore, there is NO DATA LOSS.