On 22/9/2011, the very first day of the ITMA Barcelona exhibition which has held from 22 till 29 September 2011, it was exactly 75 years since Picanol was founded in Ypres (Belgium). The company name refers to the Spanish engineer Jaimé Picañol.  His ideas shaped products that brought with them important technological advantages. Since its foundation in 1936, the Picanol Group has evolved from a very small player in the world to the technological leader among the modern weaving machine manufacturers.

The group develops, manufactures and sells through high-tech weaving machines, based on air (airjet) or rapier (rapier) technology. It supplies weaving machines to weaving mills worldwide, and also offers its customer such products and services as training, upgrade kits, parts and service contracts.

Picanol BlueBox:

Electronics already plays an important role in the weaving room. Its role will become even more significant in the near future.

Automation to reduce the workload of personnel and to cut energy consumption, electronic controls to meet with higher safety requirements, electronics to provide more flexibility in adapting to new situations, or for more reliability, or to enable remote support: all these are becoming increasingly important day by day.

Picanol BlueBox

Picanol decided to develop an entirely new electronic platform. The Picanol BlueBox is much more than an upgrade of the existing electronic platform.

Using the latest microprocessor technology, Picanol BlueBox increases calculation speeds by a factor of 10, and the larger internal memory makes it possible to store much more data, creating new opportunities for support and affording practically unlimited weaving patterns.

Picanol BlueBox is designed to fully exploit the possibilities of remote service: when it is connected to the Internet, the company specialists around the world can look right into the heart of the system. For machines that are not directly connected to the Internet, the Customer System File (CSF) can be downloaded onto a USB stick and sent to Picanol by e-mail. This file contains all the data needed by Picanol to analyze a particular situation and advise the customer on the action to be taken.

Picanol BlueBox has only a few types of printed circuit board, covering all the main functions and options in a modular way. The actual number of PCBs will depend on the features installed on the machine, but covering many functions with just a few PCBs significantly reduces the inventory of spare parts that users need to hold.

OMNIplus Summum airjet weaving machine from Picanol:

It is a new standard in airjet weaving machine. Picanol presented it to assure the highest possible flexibility to the world. The main highlight of OMNIplus Summum is the flexibility to use different types of yarn and the new insertion system. It is developed according to the integrated concept philosophy. This concept also is a key to reach a high level of modularity.

However the two elements considered being the major ones on an Airjet machine, being the insertion system and the electronic control, have been further improved. The insertion system has under gone important changes in order to be able to assure the user of the maximum possible flexibility and user friendliness. They took the decision to introduce fully electronic pressure regulators. These allow the user to set the machine electronically.

The OMNIplus Summum has a unique triple air tank setup for the relay nozzles. The BlueBox system is not just a further check up possibility but a modular build up. The combination of the new insertion system with the Picanol BluBbox system creates a Future proof platform.