Mélange yarns and color-effect yarns are a growing trend in the garment industry. In order to have an optimum mélange yarn, the fibers have to be mixed carefully in the right proportions at the beginning of the spinning process. Even small shade variations or color deviations of the yarns may result in poor quality of the fabric after knitting or weaving. Another common reason for poor quality can arise during the winding process, where bobbins with similar looking color or shades are accidentally mixed up. Shade variations may be visible as disturbing stripes in the final product. Depending on the fabric and on the magnitude of the variation, the final quality might be so poor, that the fabric cannot be used at all. Even small variations in the shade of the yarn, which cannot be detected by the human eye when looking at the bobbin, can result in poor quality. Complaints about yarn quality can be expensive for the spinning mill. To guarantee high quality even in this difficult field Loepfe now offers a new optional feature in the yarn clearer YarnMaster ZENIT+. The OffColor detection is able to detect and eliminate very small color and shade variations in the yarn during the winding process. The new feature uses the F-Sensor, which is already integrated in the YarnMaster ZENIT+. Therefore spinning mills, which already use the yarn clearer for quality control during winding, can update their devices with this new functionality.
The new OffColor detection has been extensively tested with a large number of bobbins with mélange yarn. The bobbins, which have been made available by a customer, had the same color, but small shade variations as the black portion of the mélange yarn varied slightly from dark to light grey. During the test runs, which have been conducted at Loepfe´s headquarter in Wetzikon, Switzerland, the YarnMaster ZENIT+with the new optional OffColor feature was able to detect even the smallest shade variations very reliably. All other functions of the yarn clearer have been disabled during the tests. This is the ultimate proof that the new functionality works properly. The new feature does not depend on the color of the yarn. In addition to the tests conducted at Loepfe´s headquarter some clients have already tested the new functionality during normal operation in the spinning mill. These clients confirm, that the OffColor feature works absolutely reliably and clear yarns of wrong colors or shades during the winding process. Between 10 % and 15 % of the spinning mills actually produce colored yarns or mélange yarns. “The new YarnMaster ZENIT+with the OffColor feature is an absolute must for spinning mills, which are aiming for constantly high quality in the production of mélange yarns or colored yarns”, says Gianni Heusser, product manager at Loepfe. The new feature makes the YarnMaster ZENIT+yarn clearer even more versatile. It is able to ensure high quality output at a spinning mill, by eliminating all yarn faults during the winding process.
