Design and development of an ingenious cricket ball decorative stitching machine

Abstract

This paper presents an ingenious cricket ball decorative stitching machine, developed by CMERI, Durgapur, which provides simultaneous stitching of two parallel rows on each hemispherical leather cup of cricket ball. A unique dual needlelooper arrangement of chain stitching is developed for decorative stitching on curved surface of hemispherical leather cup. Salient design features and working principle of ball holding and indexing mechanism are discussed. Operation of motor drives, optical interrupter type sensor, and encoder are synchronized and automated by micro-controller with programmable and erasable memory. Machine tested successfully and will produce better quality cricket balls in less time than manual stitching.