Patent ID: 6845698

Claim:
An apparatus for producing discontinuous lengths of filament, comprising: a rotatable first roll having a first severing structure; a rotatable second roll having a second severing structure, the second severing structure corresponding with the first severing structure for severing a length of the filament positioned between the rolls; a drive system operable to independently rotate and radially position the first roll and the second roll according to a first roll drive command, a second roll drive command, and a roll spacing drive command; a sensor system operable to receive positional inputs representative of an actual current rotational position of the first roll, an actual current rotational position of the second roll, and an actual current radial spacing between the first roll and the second roll, the sensor system further operative to generate a first roll current rotational position state signal, a second roll current rotational position state signal, and a current radial spacing state signal corresponding to the positional inputs; and a control system operable to receive the first roll current rotational position state signal, the second roll current rotational position state signal, and the current radial spacing state signal and generate the first roll drive command, the second roll drive command, and the spacing drive command, wherein the control system synchronizes the positioning of the first severing structure and second severing structure during rotation of the first roll and the second roll.