CSM set-up: Imperia

I'm mostly doing this for SallyinWales, who has an Imperia that needs adjusting. But I thought it wasn't a bad idea to make a note of the settings anyway, in case anything ever goes out of adjustment for whatever reason. After all, transportation of my CSM involves a bath towel and a large plastic tote!! :)

In all cases, I am cranking the handle in a clockwise fashion, which makes the yarn carrier move anti-clockwise. I've been knitting and ribbing with sock yarn with these settings with no problems. I have my cylinder set to 6 and the ribber set to 3 (6 being the tightest it would knit  without riding up and/or tucking).



For a start, the cylinder alone raises the needle before the centre of the yarn carrier. It's almost exactly lined up with the top left corner of the yarn carrier, looking from the centre of the machine.



This is a cross-section view of the needle and the yarn carrier. The needle rises very slightly above the yarn carrier at maximum extension - about 0.8mm



Now a cross-section with the ribber in place. My ribber is approximately 8.5mm above the top surface of the cylinder.



This is a tricky view - it's the position of the timing slot on the ribber. I did the measurement from the end of the slot to the centreline of the slotted screw in plan, because mine has a washer and the screw heads might not be consistent on another machine (my screw does look rather more shiny than the rest of the machine). The end of the slot to the centreline is 8mm. The cylinder on the right is supposed to represent the driving pin, the perspective somewhat got away from me here! :)



This is a sketch of the cylinder and ribber needles. The ribber needle reaches its maximum outward travel just ahead of the main needle (also at maximum) in terms of the direction of knitting. In other words, the ribber needle at maximum is immediately ahead of the cylinder needle at maximum. I'm basing this on a 1x1 rib for simplicity. 



This is a plan view of the ribber cam and yarn carrier. The ribber needle starts to move outwards when it lines up with the leading corner of the ribber cam. The ribber needle at max (not shown here) lies between the dot marked "high" (the cylinder needle) and the centreline of the yarn carrier. 

Hopefully this is useful information for someone!