Predictive Maintenance
Under-feed and the cams wear. Over-feed and the surplus lands on the fabric as a stain the buyer finds.
— mL/h
Film demand plus centrifugal throw-off
A negative surplus means the machine is being starved and should be read as urgent; a large positive surplus means oil is going somewhere, and on a knitting machine that somewhere is usually the fabric. Neither the throw-off coefficient nor the contact area is a catalogue value — both must be fitted from measured oil consumption at two speeds on the actual machine, and the coefficient in particular absorbs everything about guarding, extraction and cylinder condition. Not all surplus reaches the cloth either: extraction and drip trays recover part of it, so the staining index is a comparative indicator rather than a prediction of defects.
Circular Knitting Cam & Sinker Lubrication Optimizer — free, with the formula and a worked example, at Textile School.