I'm new to this too, and have certainly felt the same about "throwing my machine off a cliff" as well. Tech support from Techsew is a joke. However the needle scarf needs to be on the right side not on the left side. I am assuming that needle groove and needle scarf are the same thing. But what is important is that the long needle scarf/groove needs to be on the right side. Mine has done the same though. Sometimes it works and then, bam, it is not sewing again. It took me almost a month to get it going. Finally, I took it to a local shop and spent $170.00 to get it timed and a few other things the tech said he had to do. Brought it back and used it for about 4 hours and it was back to where it was before ...not sewing again! I think these things are sensitive to the timing, and it goes out frequently. The guy that said look at the Juki instructions helped me because I couldn't take it for the $170.00 fix every week. I think that there are better machines to buy. Wish I had bought a different brand.
