HELP!! My brand new Janome 6500 is not working!!
 

Hello - I'm so upset right now - I just received a Janome 6500 as a gift and its not sewing correctly - if anyone can help me out I would really appreciate it. I used it yesterday and it was fine. Today I was piecing blocks on it and the edge of the material got sucked into it. I cleaned it all out per the instructions in the manual and now it does not sew at all. The needle goes up & down but it does not pick up the bobbin thread. UGH!! Any suggestions are welcome. I am going to continue to try and work through it so will check back here in a bit. Thanks so much for any help you can give.

Heather G.

Is your needle in back the front? When I accidentally did this my machine would not pick up the bobbin thread.

Silly question - did you rethread it properly? I would especially check the direction of the bobbin and that you've left enough of a tail on the bobbin thread for it to be picked up.

Next, look at the bobbin case itself and see if there are any burrs or little holes on the flat part that sits towards the back. If there are, you can often file them down to get things working again.

When you had the problem piecing, was it a "violent" sucking down of the material or something more gentle? Did you do any tugging on the needle trying to get the fabric out?

I have a 6500. When I have that problem I rethread both top and bottom. If that does work I change the needle too. Sometimes changing the bobbin helps.

There is a users group on yahoo that has a lot of great information from other 6500 owners.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Janome6500/

Deb - Thank you a thousand times over - I changed the needle & the bobbin and it works! YEAH!!! Many hugs to you!!! Big Smile and huge sigh!

Heather

I have a 6600 and I swear...every time something isn't working, just rethreading the machine seems to fix it. Not sure why that works but now it's the first thing I try!

Enjoy your new machine! What a wonderful gift!

When I got my 6600, the bobbin tension was pretty tight. I noticed on the zigzag stitch--it was shaped like a Y on the back. I loosened it up slowly, with quarter turns, until I had a perfect stitch with both straight stitch and zigzag. I just wanted to share this info in case it happens to anyone else. I love this machine!!!!

Thank you everyone for your input. I was so upset. I thought I'd killed it lol. Now I can get back to sewing :)

So glad your machine is now working. It is so aggravating when things don't work. I was concerned that the timing was thrown off. Simple fixes are always good. When I have issues with my machine that is what I do - clearn, rethread top and bobbin and change needles.