Patent ID: 8201509

Claim:
A tufting machine for forming patterned tufted articles, comprising: at least one reciprocating needle bar carrying a series of spaced needles; backing feed rolls for feeding a backing material through the tufting machine; a series of yarn feed devices, each including a yarn feed drive unit having a drive motor and a motor controller directly coupled with the drive motor so as to form an integrated yarn feed drive unit for each yarn feed device, and a feed roll for gripping and feeding yarns to the needles driven by its drive motor, and a control system including programmed pattern instructions for controlling feeding of the yarns by the yarn feed drive units to form a desired tufted pattern, wherein each motor controller of each integrated yarn feed drive unit of each yarn feed device is in communication with the control system to receive instructions received from and provide feedback to the control system, and in response to the instructions received from the control system, each motor controller directly controls the drive motor coupled therewith for feeding multiple ends of yarns per feed roll to selected ones of the needles so as to form at least one pattern repeat across the backing material.