Patent ID: 7347151

Claim:
A tufting machine for forming cut pile and loop pile tufts in a backing material, comprising: a reciprocating needle bar having a series of spaced needles mounted therealong; a yarn feed mechanism for supplying a series of yarns to the needles; a hook assembly below the needles and including a series of loopers or hooks that are moved in a reciprocating motion into engagement with the needles as the needles penetrate the backing material in order to form loops of yarn within the backing material; a clip assembly including a series of clips engaging each of the loopers or hooks, and a series of actuators for moving the clips between engaging and non-engaging positions; and a control system monitoring the position of the needle bar with respect to the backing material and calculating at least two separate firing points for causing a change of state of the clips per a stroke of the needle bar to enable selective actuation of the clips to cause transitions from cut pile to loop pile tufts, and from loop pile to cut pile tufts to form a desired cut-loop pattern.