40 Embroidery Maintenance and Repair Facts
Osman Bayrak
40 Embroidery maintenance and repair Facts
1. Clean under the needle plate once a week.
2. Oil the hook every four hours of continuous sewing.
3. If your thread breaks or shreds change that needle.
4. Needles in backwards will not sew.
5. Hook timing rarely changes, check it before you change it!
6. Reciprocators don’t break by themselves you must hit something.
7. A good sign you broke a reciprocator after you hit something is the needle won’t go up or down. With the head on do a manual trim see if the needle goes up and down?
8. The thread from the cone to the needle has many things it can tangle on; check this thoroughly before making drastic changes.
9. A bobbin case creates 70% of all sewing problems.
10. Check bobbin tension, if loose clean under the flat tension spring with a business card and then tighten the tension.
11. When changing cones of thread cut the thread, tie on the new cone and pull it through.
12. Birds nesting (a big glob of thread under the needle plate) is normally the result of loose upper or lower thread.
13. Leave out the bobbin and start sewing you will see an instant birds nest.
14. A bent presser foot that’s rubbing a needle will drive you crazy!!
15. In an absolute positive emergency newspaper will substitute for backing.
16. Like wise a dry cleaners plastic bag will act as topping.
17. A hook is the thing you put your bobbin case in. (no you cannot fish with it in an emergency).
18. Presser feet that do not touch the material will cause thread breaks.
19. Sewing at 1000 rpms with numerous thread breaks is not as productive as sewing at 750rpm with no thread breaks!!
20. Take a magic marker and place a dot on each thread break sensor wheel will let you see them turn from across the room.
21. Polyester thread is several times stronger then rayon, bleach resistant, and cheaper….. need I say more.
22. If you have an arm bushing seize up from lack of oil, pour Marvel mystery oil into the bushing and let it set for a couple hours. That will free it. (Purchased in an auto parts store).
23. Burrs and nicks on the hook can be buffed out using very, very fine sandpaper such as crocus cloth.
24. To check that the trimming knives are working, pull the movable knife open. Then loop the thread around it. Close the knife…. if the thread cuts your knives are working.
25. The standard do all needle that came with your machine is dbxk5 nm 75/11 sharp.
26. If you decide to do hook timing use a needle in the middle of the sewing head (i.e. 15 needles: use 7) put a new 75/11 needle in this spot then do hook timing.
27. Having a hard time seeing a needle eye while threading put a piece of backing behind the needle.
28. Use two pieces of backing on polo shirts.
29. Tear away backing is intended for hats.
30. Never sew a sample sew out on tear away.
31. Some customers opt to sew shirts at 180 degrees, one: it wont stretch the neck of the shirt; two: getting oil on the tail is much easier to deal with.
32. Exposing your thread to sunlight ages it very quickly.
33. Located on each side of the single head machine is a cut out for the y axis (front to back) motion of the pantograph. Below these cutouts are your belts for y axis drive do not set anything small that can fall inside this cutout and cause these belts to lock up.
34. This is very important….. trace all new designs; not doing so can be disastrous!!
35. If you restart a design, make sure you go back to origin…..Not doing so will result in hitting a hoop.
36. When ordering parts from the parts department, have the part number found in your parts book before you call, it will speed up your time on the phone.
37. Using long extension cords to run your machine can cause voltage problems that will show up as error codes on your machine.
38. When using the x and y scaling to enlarge or shrink a design, it’s recommend not exceeding 10% of the design size. (The stitch density of the design will not change when you change this on your machine).
39. When sewing multiple names onto garments stack all the names on top of each other and make them one design. Make each name a different color as you stack them and then load them onto a disk. Then you’re going to set your needles up as follows. Needle numbers are going to be the same for as many garments you will sew (IE.four garments sewing the color on needle number one 1111) when the first name is done the machine stops and color change stop is showing on the display put your next garment on the machine and push start the next name now sews etc. etc.
40. If you have embroidered for a while you will have certain designs drive you crazy, thread breaks at certain spots in the design. Boy would it be nice if my machine could slow down automatically at these spots. Most machines have this capability (Usually it’s in the EDIT function). After you set it up, the next time you run the design it will automatically slow down at these spots.
1. Clean under the needle plate once a week.
2. Oil the hook every four hours of continuous sewing.
3. If your thread breaks or shreds change that needle.
4. Needles in backwards will not sew.
5. Hook timing rarely changes, check it before you change it!
6. Reciprocators don’t break by themselves you must hit something.
7. A good sign you broke a reciprocator after you hit something is the needle won’t go up or down. With the head on do a manual trim see if the needle goes up and down?
8. The thread from the cone to the needle has many things it can tangle on; check this thoroughly before making drastic changes.
9. A bobbin case creates 70% of all sewing problems.
10. Check bobbin tension, if loose clean under the flat tension spring with a business card and then tighten the tension.
11. When changing cones of thread cut the thread, tie on the new cone and pull it through.
12. Birds nesting (a big glob of thread under the needle plate) is normally the result of loose upper or lower thread.
13. Leave out the bobbin and start sewing you will see an instant birds nest.
14. A bent presser foot that’s rubbing a needle will drive you crazy!!
15. In an absolute positive emergency newspaper will substitute for backing.
16. Like wise a dry cleaners plastic bag will act as topping.
17. A hook is the thing you put your bobbin case in. (no you cannot fish with it in an emergency).
18. Presser feet that do not touch the material will cause thread breaks.
19. Sewing at 1000 rpms with numerous thread breaks is not as productive as sewing at 750rpm with no thread breaks!!
20. Take a magic marker and place a dot on each thread break sensor wheel will let you see them turn from across the room.
21. Polyester thread is several times stronger then rayon, bleach resistant, and cheaper….. need I say more.
22. If you have an arm bushing seize up from lack of oil, pour Marvel mystery oil into the bushing and let it set for a couple hours. That will free it. (Purchased in an auto parts store).
23. Burrs and nicks on the hook can be buffed out using very, very fine sandpaper such as crocus cloth.
24. To check that the trimming knives are working, pull the movable knife open. Then loop the thread around it. Close the knife…. if the thread cuts your knives are working.
25. The standard do all needle that came with your machine is dbxk5 nm 75/11 sharp.
26. If you decide to do hook timing use a needle in the middle of the sewing head (i.e. 15 needles: use 7) put a new 75/11 needle in this spot then do hook timing.
27. Having a hard time seeing a needle eye while threading put a piece of backing behind the needle.
28. Use two pieces of backing on polo shirts.
29. Tear away backing is intended for hats.
30. Never sew a sample sew out on tear away.
31. Some customers opt to sew shirts at 180 degrees, one: it wont stretch the neck of the shirt; two: getting oil on the tail is much easier to deal with.
32. Exposing your thread to sunlight ages it very quickly.
33. Located on each side of the single head machine is a cut out for the y axis (front to back) motion of the pantograph. Below these cutouts are your belts for y axis drive do not set anything small that can fall inside this cutout and cause these belts to lock up.
34. This is very important….. trace all new designs; not doing so can be disastrous!!
35. If you restart a design, make sure you go back to origin…..Not doing so will result in hitting a hoop.
36. When ordering parts from the parts department, have the part number found in your parts book before you call, it will speed up your time on the phone.
37. Using long extension cords to run your machine can cause voltage problems that will show up as error codes on your machine.
38. When using the x and y scaling to enlarge or shrink a design, it’s recommend not exceeding 10% of the design size. (The stitch density of the design will not change when you change this on your machine).
39. When sewing multiple names onto garments stack all the names on top of each other and make them one design. Make each name a different color as you stack them and then load them onto a disk. Then you’re going to set your needles up as follows. Needle numbers are going to be the same for as many garments you will sew (IE.four garments sewing the color on needle number one 1111) when the first name is done the machine stops and color change stop is showing on the display put your next garment on the machine and push start the next name now sews etc. etc.
40. If you have embroidered for a while you will have certain designs drive you crazy, thread breaks at certain spots in the design. Boy would it be nice if my machine could slow down automatically at these spots. Most machines have this capability (Usually it’s in the EDIT function). After you set it up, the next time you run the design it will automatically slow down at these spots.