At the urging and encouraging of my friend Carla, I spent the day yesterday trying to get some help for my poor quilting machine. Before Christmas, I was changing out the tracks on the frame and broke one of the encoder wires. I've had nothing but trouble ever since. I thought my troubles were solved when I got the name and number of a guy who does house calls and he was going to come down in January to fix it, then his truck broke down and he never called me back. I've called him 10 times this week, left messages and even texted his number and either he got a new phone and number or is no longer on this planet.
So, yesterday, I called the company that makes my machine. They were not very helpful.
viking
800-446-2333
The first lady said she would have to find someone to call me back because she had no idea what was wrong with my machine. About two hours later a lady called back and she told me to call Liten Up (makers of qbot) because they no longer deal with the stitch regulator that is part of the machine. We don't have cruise control, our stitch regulator is built into the machine. The encoders aren't for the quilt sew clever or qbot, they are for the machine, so even if you don't have a robot, you still have encoders because the machine comes with a stitch regulator built in. She had a manual in front of her and was reading off everything that could be wrong with a y encoder problem. I asked if I could just purchase a new encoder or wires from her since she was part of the company that made my machine and she said I would have to go through the dealer I got my machine from. Since I got my machine second hand and the person got the machine through a JoAnn's, that's not possible.
Called liten up, they said to send an email to
wouldn't even talk to me about the problem I was having, just send an email.
Viking also gave me some numbers to try, said they were all from their website
Elk Grove
916-686-6676
called and the lady said the repair guy doesn't do house calls and doesn't work Wednesdays, but I could bring my machine in for him to look at there and he could fix it for me. Did I mention it's a long arm machine with a 12 foot table? It took about 2 hours to set up the first time. Not sure the lady on the phone understood that part.
Lodi
209-333-2941
Guy there said he didn't work on long arm machines, but gave me the name of a guy, Richard, at Elk Grove Vacuum and Sewing, to google and said that guy doesn't work on Vikings, but does do house calls and does work on every other type of long arm.
Santa Rosa
707-544-7529
didn't call
Dublin
925-829-6511
didn't call
Richard in Elk Grove
Called and told him my troubles. He said both issues-machine running continuously and not reading the y encoder was due to the y encoder being bad. He said that since it would cost $100 for the house call and $85 per hour he suggested I just get a new encoder, plug it in and see if that didn't solve the problem.
I ordered a new encoder from myqbot.com since that is where Viking sent me in the first place and since I ordered the encoder wire from there and it is exactly the same wire as the one I got from Julian (my local viking dealer) when he ordered it from the Viking company, I think I am safe. If not, I'm just throwing more money at this machine.
If this doesn't work, I will order two encoders and the wire that goes with them from here
So, that's where my machine sits now. Not an encouraging day.
2 comments:
Hang in there. I pray your machine gets fixed soon.
Now that is frustrating! At least one person seems to have tried to genuinely help you. Love the outfits you have been making your new puppy. Hope he is settling in well.
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