In the last 10 years of yarn production, cotton contamination has become a major problem because of the greatly increased use of high-speed spinning machines, which require high-quality cotton, especially with regard to stickiness, neps and seed-coat fragments (SCF). Cleaning the cotton of trash is a relatively simple operation in contrast to neps and SCF. The need to evaluate major contaminants led to the development of the FCT as a rapid machine for testing the four major contaminants together. The FCT measures neps, SCF and trash by means of unique image- processing techniques and algorithms that enable it to differentiate, in a thin web, between neps, SCF and trash in real time. Stickiness is measured by simulation of the crush rolls of the spinning mill - the place that stickiness causes most of problems in yarn production. Combining all four contaminants in one machine that functions both off line or on line (in the near future) opens to the cotton industry new possibilities of controlling cotton quality, which in turn will lead to better production of yarns. The first set of data obtained from the first system shows very promising results, which will be presented in this work.