I purchased a Janome MB-7e multi-needle embroidery machine two months ago. When I first got it, I decided to freshen it up with new needles and clean it up. The person who sold it to me stated it had recently been serviced, but I don’t trust anything. I’d rather clean it, oil it, and set it up myself. I purchased it for $3000, knowing that the rolling cart itself cost that much online ( I know because I looked at buying the machine and cart new ).
I had so many big plans for this new machine! It was going to change what I could offer in my shop on Etsy. I would be able to large pieces like adult shirts without having to rely on moving the hoop and hoping I got it right.
The first thing I did was create a design to allow me to check all of the needles. This way I could see what needles worked, what needles needed the tension changed, etc.
My first run was disappointing. Only two out of seven needles worked. I tweaked and tested the others, but nothing seemed to work. My oldest son, who is mechanically gifted, came into my studio after I had been dealing with this for weeks. I had lamented how sad I was that nothing seemed to work, and I was out of options. He brought in his little camera that looked like something one would use for a colonoscopy and examined the small areas you had to take apart to see, and then he said, “What did you do when you got it? The book here says it could be a needle issue.”
I decided to put a new needle in, and what I noticed is that the scarf (the indented portion) goes to the back with needles with flat backs. So I put the scarf in the back. When I felt all of the needles that weren’t working, I noticed I had turned the scarf to the front. Immediately I changed all of those, and then 4 needles worked out of seven. I tweaked the tension on one, and suddenly I had 5 needles working.
I still had to adjust the bobbin tension and the tension up top to perfection before everything was working perfectly in sync, but it was still only 5 out of 7. That made me wonder. What if this thing was picky. Like 1/1000th of a millimeter picky. I shrugged and loosened the screw on one of the needles that didn’t work and barely moved it. I tightened the screw up and tried again.
Now I had six needles.
It couldn’t be that easy, could it? The fix?
It was that easy. Here I was trying to locate new parts or service technicians close to me (there are none, by the way). I still need to perfect my tension, but at least I now have a fully functioning machine!
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