Singer 111w155 Needs to Reverse and Slow Down

[teched]

Hello Everyone!  Been a while since I have been on here.  Summer has me very busy with other projects, but with the crispness of Fall in the air my attention has swung back to my sewing.  I admit that I have not been practicing at all with the old Singer and need to get back at it.  I initially got a little scared because of the high speed and would like to slow the old girl down.  I plan on trying the reduction of the motor pulley first and with probably end up with a servo motor, but this got me thinking. First question is and this will probably squelch the rest of my idea.  If I reverse the direction of the motor on my Singer 111w155 will it sew in reverse? Or will I get a big rats nest.  Thanks

[Constabulary]

The combination of a speed reducer and servo motor is the best you can do. You can sew slow and have more torque.

No it will not sew reverse as the hook will tun in the opposite direction and can not catch the thread loop. This amchine is entirely not setup for sewing reverse - you HAVE to turn around the material to back stitc

[TinkerTailor]

Or do the cheating way, and pick the foot up, back up 4 stitches, put it down and sew forward to the end. Doesn't look as nice but locks it in just fine. I only turn around to  backstitch visible seams when i don't have reverse.

Reminds me of a story from my past when I got pulled over by the police.  I somehow managed to talk my way out of any tickets. When they let me go I had to tell them that due to the fact that my trucks transmission had broken that morning, (no longer shifting into reverse) and they had me pull into a spot I had to back out of (slightly uphill), I could not go unless I got a push or a tow. The two of them then pushed me backwards uphill so I could leave...........

[teched]

Thanks for the info.  I kind of figured that some one would have figured out how to reverse the motor if it would make it sew in reverse.  There are many different people selling Servo motors on Ebay.  The motor look almost identical and more than likely are made in the same China factory.  Do you people recommend a manufacturer or seller?  I'm looking at the $100 to $150 motors.

[mikesc]

Some of the servo motors make a horrible "beep" sound all the time, you don't want one of those, you are in the USA, the dealers who advertise on the site here also sell servo motors , and they won't sell you one that "beeps" :) The USA members ( particularly wiz ) have posted in the past about which motors they recommend..( they'll no doubt join in to guide you ) I think that the prices that you see on ebay are about what you'll pay from a dealer here..

Servo motors can be run in reverse, but that won't make a sewing machine run and actually sew in reverse because the "hook" and needle combination will only make stitches when they are turning in the designed direction ( twin needle machines with twin bobbins are unusual in that the two "hooks" don't both turn in the same direction ) ..the "reverse" on a normal machine refers to the change in motion of the "feed dogs" apart from that drive for the feed dogs changing the rest of the machine doesn't change its rotational direction when you go from forwards to reverse.

When you get your servo motor, you need to make sure that it is set to drive the sewing machine main pulley ( at the right side ) in a counter-clockwise direction ( in other words, towards you )...

Search for ( copy and paste the line below, exactly as it is , quotes and all into your favourite search engine..
"servo motor" site:leatherworker.net

it will get you all the threads that have the words "servo motor" in them that have been posted on this site.

HTH :)

[TinkerTailor]

The constant beeping/squeeling is due to the fact that the same motor and controller is being used on both north american 60hz power as well as the 50hz power of the UK and many other countries. Motors and their controllers are particularly susceptible to frequency differences. What you are hearing is the electronics operating at a frequency they were not designed for. Cheap motor controllers have a 110/220 voltage switch but may not have an ability adapt to the different frequency of power.

It is not that the north american motors are any better, they just work on 60hz fairly well. Use an american motor in Britain and it might squeal like Harry Rogers motor.... Better motors will have circuitry inside to compensate and eliminate the problems with both voltage and frequency of power.

[teched]

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[Wizcrafts]

5 hours ago, teched said:

Thanks for the info.  I kind of figured that some one would have figured out how to reverse the motor if it would make it sew in reverse.  There are many different people selling Servo motors on Ebay.  The motor look almost identical and more than likely are made in the same China factory.  Do you people recommend a manufacturer or seller?  I'm looking at the $100 to $150 motors.

I use and recommend buying servo motors and belts from Toledo Industrial Sewing Machines, which is one of the advertisers supporting this forum financially.

 

The motor in the eBay ad uses push buttons to control the functions. You will get frustrated rather quickly trying to make the correct adjustments with that type of motor. Most of us have moved to the Family Sew FS-550 which has a rotary dial to limit the top speed. I can feather mine down to 1 stitch per second when needed. If you buy the motor from Toledo, ask to have the custom 50mm pulley installed, along with the required shorter belt. Have your existing belt length handy and the diameter of the motor pulley.

[teched]

Thanks.  I will look into Toledo

[mikesc]

@TinkerTailor.. :) Yep, that makes perfect sense re frequencies..but I'm surprised ( given that Harry seems a "techy" kind of person ) that he bought a machine ( the beeping servo in his video does indeed seem to be the model most usually seen on the ads for machines complete with servo in the USA ) that was equipped with a servo to USA "spec"..I remember another of his videos that shows a servo on another machine he has / had , it didn't "beep", but that one may well have been bought "after market"..The servos that I ( and Constabulary have ) were bought from the UK, and cost around the $130.oo ( + VAT at 20% of course ) and they don't beep at all , but then EU supply ( at least in UK, FR and DE ) is pretty accurate at 50hz..

Ours are Chinese made, I have contacted the manufacturer in China with a view to importing them to France for resale, just dotting the Is and crossing the Ts with the customs people here so as not to get slammed for " we made up a figure and tripled it" customs duties on the first batch..The usual retail price here in France is waaaaay more than in the UK, for exactly the same unit.

Dikman ( in Oz ) bought his direct from China, very similar to the UK model and about the same as the ebay price.

@teched
If I were in the USA, I would go with wiz'z advice and get one from Toledo Bob,
reasons..
He is an advertiser whose ad dollars support the forum we are posting on.
He ( and the other dealers here ) are incredibly helpful, even to people that they didn't sell a machine to.
( French dealers forget you the moment the check is cashed , and they don't offer free advice on forums )
His price on the servo with the dial ( haven't seen any of those in the EU ) is around the same as the ebay price.
Free shipping on ebay frequently means free from China, could take weeks or months via China post ( they ain't offering "free shipping" via fed-ex or DHL )..and there may be extra customs duty to pay when it arrives on top of the $130.oo
If it arrives from China defective ( can happen, no-one tests every single thing they are shipping, they won't be trying to screw you, it can just happen that you receive a "dud" ) .getting a refund or a replacement is going to be a hell of a lot harder from China ( and take longer ) than from one of the dealers on here in the USA..and you might have to ship the defective one back to China ( at your expense ) before they'll refund..
If anything goes wrong with it once you have it, the dealers on here have a reputation to protect, they are likely to be far more "reactive" than a reseller in China..and yes, the ebay ad will be from a reseller..even if they are in China..
How do I know this..because I now know how much these things actually cost ( the good ones ) since I received mine and tracked down the manufacturer in China..they don't cost $130.oo ( or even close to that ) when you buy them in multiples of 10..I could sell you one when mine arrive, at the ebay price, but definitely not with free shipping ( shipping from China via China post is so cheap it makes me weep in jealousy ) ..it would cost me nearly $130.oo to send one to the USA..and I couldn't give any after sales service to anyone outside of France..and every one would lose on refunds as the exchange rates $ to € and back again are not nice..

Buy it from Toledo Bob, who wiz recommends, or one of the other dealers here if you think Bob eats kittens or some such ( merely jesting Bob ;) ..and sew without worrying about if the magic blue smoke escapes one day, or it arrives DOA, how are you gonna mail it back to the ebay guy in China.

Oh and one other thing..the Chinese ones, when ordered direct tend not to have a small pulley fitted as standard..which means you have to add the cost of a 2" pulley ( and then play around fitting it, and voiding the warranty inn the process )..whereas the dealers here will fit one before they send it out to you.

Oh..yeah..they weigh around 5 kilo..around 12 lbs ( at least the "kits" in the boxed version ones I have coming do )..without EPS..which you probably won't need or want..and which costs extra anyway..they also may have a "take off" point for running an low voltage LED machine light ( useful ) from..

Oh..and one last thing..just my 2cts.
I know that you didn't mean it that way teched..but I think that wiz or another mod ought to edit out the picture with the brand name and the bold type in your last post..If I were one of the dealers who support this place by paying for ads..I'd be real pissed at seeing what is amounting to a huge ad ( yes I said you didn't mean it that way teched ) for another company in the middle of a thread that didn't cost them a dime, while my ad dollars are in part paying for the thread that it is on..That post is like a billboard for the company whose ebay ad it references up there, I would be spitting nails if I was one of the advertisers here who are helping pay the bandwidth for that and I saw that...and if I were Johanna, who sells ad space here on her site, I wouldn't be overjoyed either..remember who keeps the lights on here guys.

Edited October 5, 2016 by mikesc

[teched]

Definitely going with Toledo as Wiz suggested. You are right! I did not mean to advertise for this other company.  Just cut and pasted from Fleabay.  Thanks and I hope to get back on my machine soon. 

[dikman]

My advice to people wanting to buy a servo in the US is to do what you have decided and buy local. The price difference isn't really that great compared to ebay and you'll have peace-of-mind. In my case I found a Chinese company that actually had a warehouse here in Australia so I didn't have to have it shipped from China, just local, and the price was the same, but I had to request the smaller pulley for the motor and that had to come from China (no big deal, though, they were fine to deal with).

You'll enjoy that motor, it'll be like a new sewing machine!