Need help on Bernina 830 old style
 

I have a Bernina 830 old style. I can not get it to zigzag. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I want to learn how to sew on knits. I am hoping someone maybe able to walk me through it.

Not sure if this will help you but whenever I have a problem I type it in Youtube. There's always somebody who has a tutorial on fixing things.

Open the faceplate on the side, poke the swing arm and see if it moves freely. Open the top and inspect parts, give all the oil points a drop of oil, equally so behind the faceplate. The freearm pops off too, and you might as well oil everything if it's been a while.

Turn the stitch selector lever on top to straight-zigzag, gently turn the stitch width know and needle position knob and test sew a bit. Move the stitch length selector lever and try a few different stitch patterns, and see if the cam stack turns. I'm guessing it's stuck some where and parts needs a bit of tlc to shift and turn freely again. Test sew a bit again, gently poke moving parts under the top and behind the face plate, and yet another round of oil.

I have one of these wonderful machines too and sometimes I run it without thread and open the top and watch it to see how things are running I found a cracked plastic cam this way and replaced it. I think it could be like the other poster said oiled. I found that I needed to make sure there wasn't any lint when oiling too. I forgot some and the oil made it into a sticky mess. I hope you figure it out because that model was the best!
Lynda

Do you have a manual?

On the top of the machine there is a 1 - 20 lever engage it and then choose the stitch you want. There is one called a wobble stitch you can use for knits.
The best I can remember, there are setting knobs for the width and length of the stitches too. You can use an old piece of fabric to see the stitches and make it the size you want.

Do you mean that the needle won't move side to side, or that it won't form a stitch when in a zig-zag stitch?

There's double knob on the right, upper front of the machine. The inside knob changes the needle position and the outside knob changes the width. You have to move the stitch width knob higher than zero to get a zig-zag. Also, the 2 stitch selector levers on top of the machine should both be pulled forward, towards the front of the machine. One other thing that can throw you off is the button hole system, which it the knob in the center, right. Make sure it's marked line is pointing straight up.

Please let me know how I can help. That 830 is my favorite mechanical machine!

The cam gear is often cracked. This is my friend's 830 that her mother had stored in a shed for 10+ years. If you look closely at the top of the line where the red arrow points, you will see the crack in the gear. It will still move the needle bar in a zig zag pattern IF I have the two position lever on the top right pointed at the zig zag symbol, not the 1-20 symbol. I haven't run it with the motor since discovering the crack for fear of further damage. I had to slowly turn the hand wheel through a full rotation while watching the gear to spot this crack. The Bernina 701 minimatic that we bought from goodwill also had a larger crack in the same gear. It wouldn't zigzag. It cost $24 for me to replace the gear and $100 to have the timing fixed at a local sewing machine shop. There are great tutorials on how to do the repair, but I will not attempt it on a high value machine like the 830 record.[ATTACH=CONFIG]579990[/ATTACH]

The cam gear is the one I replaced with the help of my son. It really wasn't too hard. I worried about getting it lined up right but we made sure it stayed in the right place and it is back to sewing like a trooper. I think you can get a manual online if you don't have one.
Lynda

Make sure everything that needs oil is oiled.