User:Rcw88/sandbox

RCW88's Sandbox Page for Testing

Knitting in the 21st Century - the next generation of knitting devices - see also

Knitting has been around for a long time, knitting with machines goes back about 200 years , the invention of the barbed needle made machine knitting possible, the next development of the needle was the latch needle, originally made from steel wire, most needles today are 'plate' needles, that is pressed from steel plate and the latch hinge and housing formed through a steel pressing process - typically, needle manufacturers keep their exact manufacturing processes close to their [knitted] chest. Domestic flat bed knitting machines, especially originating from Japan were available in the west from the mid-1950's until the late 1990's.

Knitting machines are typically flat bed, which knits a flat fabric, or circular, which knits a tube.

Flat Bed Machines

Over the past 20 years, advances in technology have approached knitting machines from several different angles - making existing flat bed knitting machines 'digital' by replacing the original pattern control tools which date back in concept to the Jaquard knitting machine, controlled by a paper pattern - the Brother flat bed knitting machines, now out of production, started with punched paper sheets, progressing to marked up mylar sheets, before offering an early 'computerised' approach which stored patterns on the now primitive 'floppy disk'. There were significant limitations to the mylar/paper and floppy solutions which provided repeated patterns only. The pattern could be made in two coloured yarns only, unless a colour changer, available as an option was added which offered up to six colours, depending upon model.

The Brother machines can now be fully computer controlled through the availability of an Arduino 'shield' [references to go here] called an AYAB, which is shorthand for 'All Yarns Are Beautiful'. The AYAB shield replaces the Brother control board, and operates the knitting machine solenoids. A companion software component, which runs on a computer, offers the opportunity to create a non-repeating 200 pixel wide bitmap of any length without repetition. The program reads the bitmap line by line and controls which colour yarn is knit at the front. AYAB website

Brother knitting machines have been out of production since 2004 [date and citation required]

An Open Source [Openknit] knitting machine was created by Gerard Rubio, Hackaday Openknit who released the design on Github OpenKnit on github, assembly instructions can be found at  and started a commercial enterprise to offer a new generation of knitting machine, the Kniterate Kniterate's web site. The Openknit was featured in the Guardian

Circular Machines

Metal Circular Sock Machines have a long history - for which there are numerous historical websites, especially in the USA see

There have been multiple developments in circular knitting machines, supported by the availability of 3D printing - the first example of a circular knitting machine, 2015 saw the first 3D printable models to create Circular Sock Machines, released through Thingiverse. Subsequently a bigger knitting machine was release to be manufactured with 3D printing technology was the Knitic, which appeared first as an Instructable, https://www.instructables.com/Circular-Knitic/ which uses a combination of materials to create a large, free standing knitting machine, powered by an Arduino controller.

Subsequently several designers created circular sock knitting machine models and made their designs available on 3D printing websites, the success or otherwise of the designs was a source of great frustration to users who tried to make working 3D printed CSMs as the designs must not only fit together, but also knit - the knitting process with a machine is something that has to be learnt, techniques for metal CSM's are generally translatable to 3D printed CSM's however methods vary according to whether the machine is a single or dual cam system.

The first commercially available 3D printed CSM was the Ashcroftmakers CSM, which was first sold in February 2020 by a UK based company called Ashcroftmakers. This machine was released in response to demand from potential customers and resulted in shipments to customers globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ashcroftmakers CSM is a dual cam machine in which the cylinder rotates and the cams which operate the needles to create stitches are stationary. A second manufacturer, based in the USA, Dean and Bean, launched in early 2021, using the Ashcroftmakers CSM as inspiration for their generation 1 design.

Ashcroftmakers and Dean and Bean have subsequently released new designs - the Ashcroftmakers CSM generation 2 offers screw adjustment to the cams and a ribber which is backwardly compatible with all Ashcroftmakers CSM's, with no tool requirements to fit the ribber to the machine. Dean and Bean launched an entirely new machine as their first generation required a redesign to accommodate a ribber. Their second generation machine uses a single cam which uses flippers to direct the needles in the correct direction whilst knitting. .

Ashcroftmakers have also released their second generation machine as a print-at-home set of 3D models with assembly and finishing instructions.