A new injector for the heavy ion superconducting linac ALPI has been built at LNL. This new accelerator, named PIAVE, is designed to accelerate ions with A/Q=<8.5 up to 1.2MeV/u. The main components are an ECRIS source operating on a high voltage platform, a three harmonic buncher, a superconducting RFQ cryomodule containing two bulk niobium structures and two QWR cryomodules housing 4 cavities each. In the last year the injector has been commissioned, with O, Ar, Ne and Xe beams, and put into operation. The beam performances, and the results of longitudinal and transverse emittance measurements will be shown and compared with simulations. Neon and argon beams have been delivered to the experiments (after acceleration with PIAVE and ALPI) for a total of about 200 hours. It should be noted that this is the first superconducting RFQ in operation; the design opportunities offered by this technology for a wider field of applications will be briefly discussed. The heart of these opportunity is given by the high intervane voltage in a cw RFQ (PIAVE can operate cw with an intervane voltage higher than 250kV).