Not picking up bobbin thread, breaking needles

[Hasco Embroidery]

Help!
My XT is having an issue with not picking up the bobbin thread so the top is just a bunch of big loops till the thread breaks.
Tech support was trying to help me, but no luck. Now it's starting to sew, missing the bobin thread and then you hear a clunk and the needle breaks.
Side note, my cutter had come undone somehow too and tech support helped me get that back on this morning.
Any suggestions, I'm all ears!

[Judy]

Good morning. I have three very strange-sounding suggestions.

A) - Wipe the inside of your bobbin case and the inside of the bobbin area on the machine with a fabric softener sheet. I get static in there sometimes and the thread sticks to the machine and doesn't catch.

B) - Check the pigtail on your bobbin case. I was having no end of problems with one bobbin case. In comparing it to the other two I have, I found that somehow the pigtail was shortened and misshaped...must have been my fabulous fingers dropping it sometime.

C) - Check your bobbin. I can't get my XT to run a cardboard sided bobbin to save my neck. Sideless is marginally better, but to make it work I have to run plastic sided NEBs.

These are my non technical things that I have done. Time for the tech guys to chime in. The clunk and the needle break sounds like it's hitting something metal - maybe a part of a previously broken needle is hiding in there somewhere just to vex you, or a big ball of thread is wreaking havoc, or the timing is off, or the needlecase isn't aligning exactly right, or the moon is in the 7th house.....

[Hasco Embroidery]

Thanks Judy,
I'll give those things a try!

[SkyLinePrints]

I had the EXACT same issue with my XT. Due to my own fault (wont go into details), I broke a needle and believe it broke on the bobbin casing. Anyway, i started experiencing the same thing you are describing. wont pickup the bobbin thread, would start then break a needle, etc...

i checked the hook timing, checked for burs, checked for everything i could think of and that i normally do on my tajima. However, nothing seemed to fix it.

finally, i had to get a melco tech to come out. he ended up replacing the hook and everything else in the front of the sew arm. after all was said and done, the machine has never run so good.

bottom line: i'd say its time to call in a tech. :-(