LK-1900A-HS

[gottaknow]

On 10/21/2018 at 10:53 AM, Wizcrafts said:

I used to use a Singer bartacker at a part time sewing job I had in the early 1990s. The machine made the most awesome CLANG at the end of each cycle, which lasted about 1 second! It is very difficult to remove items that have been bartacked on.

That clang at the end was the stop motion on Singer 269 class. Music to a mechanics ear. 

[Wizcrafts]

6 minutes ago, gottaknow said:

That clang at the end was the stop motion on Singer 269 class. Music to a mechanics ear. 

That is the model I sewed on.

[gottaknow]

The 1900 series has morphed over the years. Decent machine heads and inexpensive parts. Brother has however left them in the dust when it comes to their software. I have a highly modified 1900 for webbing applications and it never misses a beat. 

Regards, Eric 

[R8R]

7 minutes ago, gottaknow said:

The 1900 series has morphed over the years. Decent machine heads and inexpensive parts. Brother has however left them in the dust when it comes to their software. I have a highly modified 1900 for webbing applications and it never misses a beat. 

Regards, Eric 

This was cheap and they threw in boxes and boxes of thread, webbing, zippers, etc. Couldn't pass it up. 

Do you know if later control panels can be retrofitted to this machine? IP410, IP420, etc?

[R8R]

16 hours ago, gottaknow said:

Brother has however left them in the dust when it comes to their software.

Ya think?

 

[R8R]

So I thought this machine was sewing fine but I kept getting weird skips, loose stitches and occasional birds nests (which can be VERY challenging to free up in a machine like this!), especially on heavier items and multiple layers. Slowing the machine down helped a bit but there was still some phantoms that did not want to leave.

 

After a super thorough clean and lube, and an even more thorough inspection and inventory of issues, I ordered a slew of minor parts and dug in with the engineer's manual. Turns out on a machine like this even small deviations from adjustment specs can have big impacts. Much more so than a plain mechanical machine.

 

Today installed a new hook, new check spring, new tension disks, new bed hinges and rubber (the old hinges were bent bad) and a few other missing screws and such and the oddly missing eye shield. Never a good idea to run a machine this fast without one. I already broke one needle last week and it shot across the shop like a bullet.

 

Took the plunge and adjusted the timing from scratch. Turns out it was sewing ok, and "timed", but not timed exactly right to the 135x17 needle system, and the shuttle driver was adjusted WAY outboard and hitting the needle! Reset the needle bar, driver and adjusted the shuttle carriage. The adjustments on this thing are cool, very easy to time it and set the needle/hook gap.

 

Replacing the tension disks and check spring was way more challenging than anticipated, and required some exact setup so the tension adjustments would respond correctly from the control panel.

 

NOW it sews great. Can sew much faster and I'm not getting any weird lock ups or tension issues.

 

Still have to repair the bottom corner of the machine where the hinge pin is. Prob JB Weld will do the trick. The hinge holds on fine and it tilts fine but I'm a completist. (is that a word?)

 

Happy sewing.