Help please keep breaking needles !

[maggieciere]

I am so frustrated I bought a pfaff smart 300e and I was all excited I tried it at the store it worked fine I got home and broke needle after needle like 5 I think I went out got more needles I tried everything so it was send back to pfaff and I just got it back yesturday I tried one design and broke three needles I sew, I have two machines I am threading it BY THE BOOK I just dont know what the heck So I want to take it back and just put the trade in value to a better machine. I was pretty excited but now I am a bit bumed out. So One ward and upward! Any suggestions?

[quilt-silly]

I don't know anything at all about Pfaff's in specific, but here are the things I would check.

Are you sewing or embroidering? Does the machine sew a straight stitch normally, without breaking needles? If not, then try putting in a new needle, but this time, open up the needle clamp a little bit further and see if the needle doesn't actually seat a bit higher than it has, before.

With a new needle, but not threaded and without a bobbin in the bobbin case, turn the machine by the handwheel and watch the needle descend with every stitch. It should not actually touch anything while the machine is stitching. If nothing is touching the needle while you run it by hand, run it with the pedal, slowly increasing the speed.

Wear eye protection when you're watching the needle so closely.

If the machine runs normally, thread it and insert a bobbin and try sewing a seam with some scrap fabric. Don't pull on the fabric, just support it. If it sews okay, look at the seam on both sides. Is the stitching tight on one side or the other? Is there puckering on the fabric?

If the stitches on the top of the seam are too tight, loosen the tension. If the stitches on the bottom are too tight, try tightening the upper tension. If you get a balanced stitch without puckering, you're probably good to go. If the fabric puckers, the bobbin thread tension is probably too tight and you may need to loosen it and then balance the upper tension to make a good stitch.

If the needle broke, check to make sure that you're using exactly the right bobbin. It's very easy to use a class 15 instead of a 15J, for instance, but the tolerances in some of these machines are very, very small.

And that puts me pretty much at the end of my itty-bitty knowledge of things to try.

But, keep posting back about what's going wrong and someone will almost certainly be able to help you figure it out.

Good luck!

[wienerin]

to my experience needles only break when they are not properly set in. sometimes half a millimeter is enough to make the needle bump against something in the bobbin area and make it break. always double-check you pushed the needle as far up as possible when setting in a new one.

[gartner]

Check to make sure your top thread is not getting caught up on anything or on the spool or spool holder pin or a rough spot on the spool.

If the top thead is being caught up on something then this can cause needle breaks.
Make sure your top thread is moving smoothly through the machine as you stitch.

Make sure your pressure foot is in the up position when threading the machine.

Also make sure you have the bobbin in the machine the right way.

Hold your top thread tail when you first start to stitch and this will help pull up the bobbin thread and also stop any thread nests at the begining of your stitching.

When putting the needle in the machine make sure to open the screw up enough and push the needle all the way up before tightening the screw that holds the needle.

Make sure to use the right size needles for your thread weight.
40 weight embroidery thread and a size 75/11 or 80/12 Embroidery Needle.
Try a new pack of needles.

Are the Feed Dogs down when you start to embroider???

Just somethings to check!
Denise in Calgary

[Lilith]

I had a horrible time with that when I first got my Brother. For one thing, it only likes bobbins it winds to embroider but I can use the Sidewinder to sew. And they have to be the EXACT bobbin. I had a horrible problem with tangles till I got the Wonder Thread Guide they sell here at Sick.

I broke so many needles I bought in bulk

[maggieciere]

Hi there
Ok so I slowed down and took all your advise and I have made 2 ..two things lol without breaking a needle. I thank you so much I was getting sooooooo frustrated. I hope it will work now. I do have another problem though what is the best free or really cheap way to see all the designs you have on the computer. I have lots of them and need some software to keep track of them I guess.
Have a fantastic day!

[wienerin]

Maggie, there is a subforum here all about embroidery software: http://www.designsbysick.com/forums/...tware-f13.html
You will find your answers there for sure. Especially in this thread you will find a lot of information and many links.

[quilt-silly]

maggieciere, I am using SewIconz so that when I open my design folders with Windows Explorer, the thumbnails show up as pictures of the contents of the file. Very handy and only $20.

http://www.stitchesinmotion.ca/sewiconz.asp

[maggieciere]

Terrific thanks!

[maggieciere]

Thank you so much I will check that out!

[gartner]

Maggie

There is the Sew Iconizer program that will do this for you and runs on all the versions of Windows Operating System such as Xp, Vista, Windows 7.
It will work on both the 32 Bit and 64 Bit Vista and Windows 7 operating systems
http://www.sandscomputing.com/id18.html

This is the company that made the Sew Iconizer program and Sew Waht & Sew What Pro programs.

Also they have the Sew What program and the Sew What Pro program which converts and writes to different formats and also Sew What Pro does what the Sew What program does and also lets one edit designs for density etc..

I have been looking at these programs and feel they may be the most trouble free programs to load on the different Windows OS on the market for Windows computers.

There is a demo version that can be downloaded.

Denise in Calgary