Electronic device for automatically and continuously adjusting the height of a shearing pile of textile articles having a differing thickness

A device for use in conjunction with a shearing apparatus for automatically and continuously adjusting the height of the sheared pile of cloth pieces, comprising:

• detector means to measure continuously in analogue fashion the thickness of the cloth, said detector means being located at a certain distance L along the cloth before it reaches the shearing cylinder-comb unit;
• analogue measuring means to measure the width of the adjustable shearing slit defined between said shearing cylinder and said comb;
• and
• regulator means to adjust automatically the width of said shearing slit as a function of the analogue values delivered by said detector means and by said analogue measuring means, and as a function of the desired value for the height of the sheared pile;
• said analogue values being delivered by said detector means to said regulator means through an electronic digital device comprising:
• a plurality of main shift registers, said registers being controlled by clock pulses having a period of recurrence equal to the time interval required for the cloth to advance a length equal to the distance L divided by the number of main shift registers;
• means for taking the arithmetic means of the digital thickness signals corresponding to each successive part of cloth of said length;
• means for detecting the presence of a seam and for cancelling and replacing the spurious digital mean thickness signal corresponding to the part containing the seam with the digital mean thickness signal for the part immediately preceding the part containing the seam, and for cancelling and replacing the spurious mean thickness signal for the part immediately following the part containing the seam with the signal for the part next following said part;
• and means for cancelling and replacing, as soon as the seam passes the shearing cylinder-comb unit, the new digital mean thickness signal for the part containing the seam with the digital signal for the part immediately following said part following the part containing the seam.