Red Pinch Rollers

[Nancy Hepp]

OK, I heeded the message and greased up the baby for the New Year. However, as I was reinstalling the red pinch rollers, some of the little prongs broke off. I haven't fired her up to see if it effects the thread tension but I can't seem to locate them on the Melco site to replace them. All info I can see is that I must replace the yellow ones, the black cover and the red ones all at one time. Yes? Seems odd since everything else is in good condition. Thanks in advance for your help!

[Juli in Kona]

I hit my 4,000,000 maintenance just before Christmas. My red rollers are all marked and worn where the thread hits them. I called Melco and the whole set of 16 rollers, red and the yellow and the black covers was just under 100.00. But the red alone was just .45 ea. I got just the red ones. But now that I read your post, I am wondering if it is the right thing to do. Just got them Monday, so today is the day to do that very unpleasant job. Hate taking off the rollers!

Juli in Kona

[sschroed2]

Are you talking about the black tab that you lift to release tension? If so, the bad news is, I had 2 of them break when trying to reinstall the red rollers. They just snapped off, I wasn't really putting any pressure on them. Anyway, I called Melco and tried to buy some replacements and was told they are not sold separately. You have to replace the entire thread feed roller assembly. Which includes all the yellow, red, black covers everything, and it must be installed by a tech.

Fortunately, my machine was under warranty for the part, but I had to pay for a tech to come out and do the work.

In the long run, this wasn't such a bad thing, because I got to meet the tech for my area and he turned out to be an awesome person.

Sue
All Custom Embroidery

[John Cathers]

If you are looking for the part number for the Red Roller it is 30619-01. I would recommend that if you are going to order some I would get at least 16 or more. They are not very expensive. Over time this red roller will start to get a groove in it from repeated use, and should be replaced when this occurs.

John Cathers
Certified Melco Tech
1-302-893-8762

Merry Christmas
Happy New Year

[Juli in Kona]

Getting my tech over here involves a plane ride, a car rental, and possibly a hotel room. So, I try to do things myself. So, long as it doesn't involve the electronics, i.e., motherboards, motors, bad wiring, things like that, I can pretty well deal with it.

And I have the termite man coming out today to deal with and hopefully kill the termites that are dumping their waste right on top of my sewing machine (not the emb machine). And then next week, he is coming to deal with the ants. I must have hundreds of thousands of ants in my house. They are everywhere! We have had a lot of rain and that drives them inside. Aha, the sub tropics. But our bugs don't hold a candle to
Texas!

Hope everyone had a good holiday.

Juli in Kona

[Steve I]

You shouldn't have to change your red rollers after 4 million stitches, I do a 4 million stitch maint. about every two weeks on 8 machines and have only had to change 2 of the red rollers in a year. I ordered an extra set of the red and yellow rollers just to have extras and put them in the rotation. If you pull off all of the rollers for the maint. they won't get back on the same position when they are reinstalled. If you put all the levers down and start installing rollers from left to right the rollers have a little more space to go on without putting them in a bind (lessening the chances of breaking off a tab). If you break off a tab on the roller it needs to be replaced or it will wobble and you will have thread breaks.

Steve
Trinity Embroidery

[The Embroidery Authority - OLD]

Guys,
Let's set the record straight.
If you break off one or more of the three little red prongs in the center of the red thread feed pinch roller, it doesn't hurt to replace the roller. You're only looking at .44 cents per roller. If you have broken off a prong or more, then you are forcing the red rollers onto the black arm. If the roller doesn't easily snap onto the black arm, simply roll it around a little bit and try again. When putting on these red rollers, you should have every other arm lifted up. After doing the even numbers, push down the even arms then lift up the odd arms and work on those.
If the black arm is getting broken off, then you are applying too much side pressure to the arm. I tell my customers to "encourage" the arm and not to "force" the arm if any pressure is thought to be necessary. This information applies to needles 2 thru 16. If you need to replace the red roller on needle 1, then I suggest you remove the needle case front cover. It's only two screws and you DON'T have to remove it all the way so that you need to re-thread all 16 needles. Just slightly remove it forward so that you can access the red roller on needle 1. Be sure to pull out about an arms lenght of thread on all 16 needles prior to doing this so that the needles don't get de-threaded.
Now, as for the black arm... You can purchase this part by itself (p/n 30618-01), however it is not recommended that you attempt replacing it, nor the entire thread feed assembly, yourself because there are calibrations to the thread feed assembly that must be done following the repair and if you are not familiar with this area, then you might be creating more problems for yourself and ultimately need a service call to repair more than just the broken arm. But if you're willing to attempt it alone, more power to you. Personally, I'd rather have a 14 or 15 needle machine than a machine that doesn't sew on any needles because I messed up the thread feed alignment which is shared across all needles.
Hoping this info helps. (Not trying to upset anyone, just that my info is based on real Amaya owner experiences.)
Ed Orantes
Melco Tech & Trainer
504-258-6260

[Debbie Rinehart]

THANKS, ED!! I will definately save this message for next time!! While you are around thought I would ask you about my false thread breaks. It only happened on needle #16, no matter what I tried it kept giving me the thread break message, but as soon as I took the spool of thread off #16 and moved it to #13, the design sewed out fine. Does this mean there is a problem with #16. Thanks, Debbie in Indiana

[The Embroidery Authority - OLD]

Debbie,
Just glad to help a little as I crash in a motel room when working on the road.

You're needle 16 issue sounds perplexing. My guess that your thread feed system on that one needle is not correct. Possibly thread tangled in that one gear drive assembly. Color change to needle #1 then move to the left side of the machine and look behind the needle case at the row of white gear rollers. See if anything looks different than all of the other 15 white gears. You could also need some lubrication on that red pinch roller. I can't imagine it would be your thread break sensor unless more than one needle was demonstrating problems. If your bobbin tension were the culprit, then you would have problems on more than one needle too. Is it possible you don't have needle 16 threaded correctly???
Maybe it's time to clean or time for a new red pinch roller or yellow thread feed roller or both on needle 16. If these two rollers, that work together to pinch the thread, are allowing the thread to slip between them, then you could wind up having more thread in the thread path than is required and then the thread detection does what it's supposed to do because there's too much thread in the thread path.
I hope one of these suggestions solves your problem.
Take care,
Ed Orantes
Melco Tech & Trainer
504-258-6260