Needle will not hold position

[PatteM]

Please Help,

Thread keeps breaking and the needle will not stay centered it wants to ride at the left side of the needle plate therefore causing thread to break, I did perform the timing instructions and the rotary hook timing. I am at a loss. I can honestly say in my 2 years of owning this machine, It has completed only a handful of designs with no thread breaks or stopping in the middle of a design. I have 24 Shirts (not a major) due by Monday and this machine just continues to give me fits.
thanks for any help

[Hugo Torbidoni]

Patti,
Sounds like you lost your needle centering, did you make any changes in the color change calibration menu when your were reseting your rotary hook? Where are you located in WV? I live in Harpers Ferry,WV in the Eastern Panhandle. Give ma a call at 301-471-3157.

Hugo Torbidoni
MelcoTech

[PatteM]

Hugo, im calling you now! I do need to schedule a tech visit too.
Thank you

[Rod or Sharon]

It sounds as if your needlecase is out of calibration. Is this an XT?

Hook timing is only one critical part of how any embroidery machine functions. Presserfoot height, needle orientation, needle depth, thread brand or type, lubrication techniques and/or duration, machine speed, hooping techniques, material types, training or lack of, design issues....need I go on? unfortunately this business and machine operation associated with it, is not a plug and play operation.

When was the last time you had a tech visit?

A good way to help isolate machine issues away from design issues is to run the Ampass test design. If you are running Version 9 or 10 software, this can be found by going to C: drive, Program files, Melco, Amaya, Test designs and select the Ampass test design. If you are running Version 7, then use Melco Embroidery Systems in the path instead of just Melco.

The machine needs to be (freshly) completely lubricated, bobbin tension correct, presserfoot all the way down to one click up from bottom, machine speed 1000 to 1200spm, two to 3 layers of medium to heavy weight backing hooped tautly....no floppy-ness allowed here, preferably no rayon or metallic thread for this test, machine settings as to auto lower limits, column feed, run/fill speed, etc, set to defaults, use the 44x30cm hoop.

Make sure there are no bent or burred needles and that the orientation of the groove on the face/front of the needle is turned approximately 5 degrees to the right.

We recently ran this design on a customers machine and it ran flawlessly and then went to design that had been digitized by the customer and it had huge thread break issues....bear in mind that the customer had had no digitizing training to speak of in the past and was relatively new to the embroidery world...bottom line, it did impress upon him the importance of a well digitized design, such as the Ampass test design and a design that has design flaws with density, column width, tie-ins, tie-off and stitch lengths.

It may be time to bite the bullet and have a certified tech go through your machine, but for the limited information in your post, it is apparent that the calibration of the needlecase is out of adjustment which could severely hamper the operation of the machine.

Rod Springer
Amaya Tech & Trainer

[PatteM]

Wow Everyone here is just super! Thanks for all the responses, I did contact Hugo, who walked me through correcting my issue= partly calibration.
Thanks everyone