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The Textile Magazine
OctoBER 2011
core capabilities, thanks to the com-
pany’s ongoing investments in man-
ufacturing.
New markets
The OptiMax machine offers cus-
tomers the opportunity to aim at
markets previously only reserved
for wide projectile machines. It will
allow them to also explore markets
that could not be served with pro-
jectiles due to limitations of the ma-
chine’s concept itself. Good exam-
ples of this are applications in which
no oil contamination is allowed or
where a large variety of wefts is
needed to increase the added value
of the product. OptiMax offers all
of this and more without losing pro-
ductivity or increasing costs.
The positive guided gripper can be
replaced with negative GC grippers
for those styles that do not require
positive transfer but could beneft
from a further boost in productivity.
As the Optimax machine was
launched as recently as 2007, its
technology is well suited for the
coming decades. The Sumo direct
drive with on-board speed control
reduces maintenance work to a bare
minimum, a fact that is confrmed
by many leading weaving mills.
The state-of-the-art electronics and
stable software add to a reduced set-
up time compared to other weav-
ing machines on the market today.
Flexible grippers are easier to set
and to maintain over time, reducing
the need for highly skilled operators
during all shifts.
Picanol always strives to offer
the best price-performance ratio,
and this is not different for this Op-
tiMax execution. It is an extension
of the OptiMax platform which of-
fers signifcant advantages in after-
sales service. The machine has been
plugged into Picanol’s existing cus-
tomer service, including spare parts,
service and training.
Picanol BlueBox
Electronics already plays an im-
portant role in the weaving room. Its
role will become even more signif-
cant in the near future.
Automation to reduce the work-
load of personnel and to cut energy
consumption, electronic controls
to meet with higher safety require-
ments, electronics to provide more
fexibility in adapting to new situ-
ations, or for more reliability, or to
enable remote support: all these are
ITMA 2011
[exclusive feature]