An Optical Technique to Detect Miss Stitch in Real Time

Miss stitch is a known fault which can unravel the properly formed stitches in single needle, chain‐stitch seams. Describes a new technique based on optical arrangement to detect miss stitch on high speed sewing machines. A bifurcated fibre optic in an electro‐optical system in conjunction with monitoring circuitry and microprocessor have been developed to stop the sewing operation as miss stitch occurs. The system proved reliable and commercial exploitation will shortly be pursued.