Drive system for a yarn eye or yarn winder

In an arrangement wherein a yarn is fed at a generally uniform delivery speed through a yarn eye to a yarn package rotated at a generally uniform peripheral speed, and wherein the yarn eye is reciprocated with a nonuniform speed adjacent the package to wind the yarn irregularly on the package, a drive system comprising:

• a planet carrier rotatable about a main axis;
• a planet gear rotatable on said carrier and orbitable therewith about said axis;
• an output gear in mesh with said planet gear;
• a cam rotationally coupled to said output gear and jointly rotatable therewith;
• means including a cam follower connected between said cam and said yarn eye for reciprocating said eye at a speed generally proportional to the rotation speed of said cam;
• a control wheel rotatable about said axis and having a pair of angularly offset control regions;
• means including an input adapted to be rotated at a substantially constant speed and a pair of outputs respectively connected to said carrier and control wheel for rotating same at substantially constant but different angular speeds;
• an entrainment element engageable with said regions of said control wheel and rotationally coupled to said planet gear;
• and
• control means including respective formations on said control regions for rotating said cam at one predetermined speed when said element engages one of said regions and for rotating said cam at another different speed when said element engages said other region.