Frequent False Bobbin Breaks

[KERRMINATOR]

I'm embroidering 40+ polo shirts with a design on the left chest and another design on the back below the collar. All day, I've been having false bobbin breaks and I don't know what's causing them. I'm using one layer of heavy weight cut away and a layer of solvy on top. I changed bobbins several times, changed the needle, switched to a different needle, oiled the rotary hook... but the false breaks are persisting. What else should I check?

On the back design, it was only saying false breaks when it was stitching the satin outline but I plodded through those and the breaks stopped for a while. I started on the fronts and they WERE going OK until a few minutes ago. Now I'm getting false bobbin breaks several times in one stitch out. GUH!

[Judy]

I find I get false bobbin breaks when I don't have enough stabilizer in there to keep the fabric from flexing, or when I don't have it hooped tight enough.

[levelbest]

Probably obvious - but check presser foot height. All the way down and one click up.

[signman]

John beat me to it...I was just typing in the same thing!
Also, watch your density on fill and lettering...if the density is too much (lower number) it increases false or real breaks...
good luck! This stuff only happens when you are facing a friday afternoon deadline....

[Sewfly]

Also check your material thickness setting --- the min setting and max settings for the thread feed.

[Juli in Kona]

I just hate statements like the above message. Check the material thickness setting - and just what am I checking for? How thick is a t-shirt with a no-show stabilizer and a topping? I there a guide somewhere that would give us even a broad hint at the thickness?

Min setting? I have mine set at 4 and that seems to work pretty well. But what about the max setting. Never heard that discussed. So, what is a good setting for a particular material and design. Any guideline anywhere?

So, saying to check the setting is totally useless and totally frustrating with no guidelines anywhere. And if there are guidelines, I like to know where they are.

Juli in Kona

[signman]

oh,oh...someone needs to back off the caffeine today!...LOL...
technical stuff, Juli, technical.
Keep in mind teeshirts are almost the worst thing to sew on...minimal material, inconsistent weave, and the embroidery costs more than the shirt.
ON the polos...I've had good luck using the meshbacking on pique knit, and a solvy on top for the 'coarse' pique knits. Bobbin 'false' alerts means it is sensing a 'loose' or broken thread-so I would take the bobbin holder and tweak the tension screw 1/4 turn and see what happens. And, sometimes just slowing down 100 spm makes a lot of difference. Hard to tell without having the actual file in my machine to see if it is something in the design, or the settings or just 'one of those things' you need to keep 'tweaking' until it runs right.
Cross your fingers-we ran a dozen hats today, youth size-first time we ever did youth...couldn't do the 'side' panel because we couldn't get a hoop to stay but sewed front and back (using the speedframe for the back) and didn't have a single problem-not once! That's a miracle for us and hats!

[Dorothy Compton]

Also, check the bobbin case....clean out any lint trapped (a piece of cardstock does wonders). Try taking it off auto and use standard mode. Lastly, if you know you have enough bobbin thread, turn bobbin detection off.

Dorothy

[Bill C @ Fineline]

I agree with juli, what are the guidlines for different material and min/max settings

[Sewfly]

I'm sorry I didn't go into further detail on the min/max settings.

If you have your min setting at 6 and your setting should be at say a 3 due to the fabric/backing being thin, then you will be feeding too much thread which, for me, has been the cause of thread and/or bobbin breaks.

Likewise, I have seen the autofeed jump up to a 25 or higher and sit there. So by checking the max feed setting (making sure it is in a reasonable zone for the fabric) can also keep from getting thread/bobbin breaks from too much feed.

Occassionally, I go to the standard mode to check the system's recommended setting for a particular fabric. From there, I go into settings and adjust my min settings 1 or 2 lower than the recommended setting and 5 or 6 higher than the recommended for the max setting (assuming there are no seams to sew over). And before stitching, I resume the auto mode.

Hope this helps.

Susan

[Greenwing]

There is a chart with some example settings in the Amaya help menu under the settings menu in the thread feed tab section.

Not perfect but a starting point.

[Greenwing]

Amaya OS Help that is.

[Marcelle]

Page 152 of the DS7 manual shows a block with the following to choose:

Light Knit
Medium Knit
Heavy Knit
Fleece
Medium Terry
Heavy Terry
Woven

Somewhere I have a list that I received in class of some settings that are explained better. I will look for it and post it.

In DS9 I did not find anything except setting up fabric styles such as denim, fleece, etc. in order to recall the settings. So far I haven't learned anything about how to create those styles.

[KERRMINATOR]

....didn't change anything, just stopped for the weekend....started in on them again on Monday and everything went fine....I'm puzzled, but not complaining that it stopped giving be the false breaks. Weird........

[Big Dog]

My turn!
I just recently completed the 4,000,000 maintanence step and all was fine until today.
One false bobbin break after another. I'm on the last job of the day and hopefully after a rest this will stop.
I've changed bobbins, bobbin cases, a needle, presser foot setting, slower speed, faster speed.
I'm stitching the design on sweatshirt fleece with the setting of 11 using a meduim weight cut-away. The problem seem worse in areas of fairly narrow column stitches, fill areas don't seem to be as much of a problem.
Design is a predigitized design from Grand Slam Designs, and I rarely have any trouble with their designs.
Any other suggestions?

[ December 19, 2009, 10:25 PM: Message edited by: Big Dog ]