For the AYAB hack, you can use either the interface from
EMSL (top) or the Arduino shield (bottom).
AYAB HACK: A NEW ARDUINO BRAIN
The AYAB hack (All Yarns Are Beautiful, ayab-
knitting.com) takes a different approach. You
remove the entire 1980s electronics unit from the
knitting machine and replace it with an Arduino
and associated circuitry. Then a simple one-pixel-
per-stitch image is sent down one row at a time,
with the Arduino firmware directly controlling the
existing mechanics in the knitting machine as you
knit. It was developed in Germany in 2013 and got
a mention on Hackaday at the time.
One big advantage is that AYAB does not
depend on the floppy connector, so it can be
used with the Brother KH910, which was the
earliest model of the series, and was the only
one available for about five years so a lot of them
were sold. Which means that they’re more widely
available and cheaper than the later models.
While they have lasted well, the mechanism that
reads the mylar pattern sheets is often the first
part to fail. AYAB is the perfect solution, as it
bypasses the need for the mylar patterning.
Both the hardware and the software for AYAB
are open source. There are two versions of
the hardware: the first design is a shield for a
standard Arduino. The second version, known as
the interface, was developed by Evil Mad Scientist
Labs; its long, narrow design fits more neatly
into the knitting machines. It has its own power
distribution and a daughter-card Arduino (actually
an Adafruit Metro Mini or similar, running Arduino
code). Otherwise the two hardware versions are
functionally identical.
While the software was basically fully
functional from the start, there have been
improvements along the way, and there’s more
we still want it to do. It’s an all-volunteer project,
so the development effort has been sporadic.
If you have a machine that can do either hack,
which to choose? Much as I’m a fan of AYAB, I
usually steer knitters toward img2Track if that’s
an option. Anyone who mainly just wants to knit
rather than to tinker, and owns a fully functioning
knitting machine that has the floppy port, is likely
to prefer img2Track.
Making the image file for either hack can be
as simple as zooming in to a file and adding your
design pixel by pixel. Or use Gimp, Photoshop,
The img2Track app simply requires hacking a 6-wire
FTDI cable to make a 4-wire floppy connector.
One of the many wonderful machine knits created by
img2Track developer Tanya Cunningham.
etc. to make a more complex design up to 200
pixels wide. This is usually a black image on
a white background, though there are ways of
incorporating more than two colors — we’ll talk
more about that in a future article. You can also
scale and dither photos directly in img2track.
img2Track Tanya Cunningham
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makezine.com
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