Singer 201 Rewiring problem
 

Hi Folks,
I just bought a Singer 201 at a yard sale. When we went to remove the machine from the cabinet we noticed some frayed wires so my husband and I decided to tackle some motor repairs. We took off the motor and cleaned it up and put it back together with the help of the "Vintage Singer Sewing Machine" blog. When we plugged her back in and tested the wiring job, the light works but the motor doesn't.

We're stumped. Any ideas on what we can do to troubleshoot or a website we can check out?:(

Thanks
Angela

Hi,

Double check wiring at bakelite connector, easy to mix one up where they screw to the posts or not making good contact. If OK, connect motor directly to outlet using ext cord and tape and see if motor works (be safe).

Jon

You might email Rain on his website. He is also a QB member.

Hi Jon,
 

Thanks for the hints about the bakelite connectors.

We got the motor working but we noticed that it is spinning fast but not at the full speed. When it's running we noticed minor arcing in the area of the brushes.

We can run without a load but not with.

Thanks again for all your help!
Angela

Did you put in new brushes - are they facing the right direction?

Hi Miriam,

The brushes were over 1/2 inch long so we used the same brushes and made sure that they were in the proper orientation.

Thanks
Angela

Hi Angela, Rain here. As I'm sure you and your husband have observed, there are so many steps involved in the potted motor re-wire that it's tough for me to guess where you might have gone wrong or maybe cut a corner. I've spent a lot of time trying to help others who also had problems, only to have them eventually confess that they skipped a step (or two!) in the tutorial, and I'm eager not to burn too many calories on that one again!

But, let's assume you've followed every step to the letter and try this. If the motor is not running at top speed, that either means a) it's a problem with the motor, or b) something further down the "chain of command" is slowing the motor down and preventing it from running at top speed. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by isolating which of those two problems it might be, and thus halving the amount of things you'd have to check.

If you're in the NYC/Tri-State area, I invite you to drop the machine off with me in Manhattan so I can take a look. If you're not, I can offer a few suggestions, but without having the machine in front of me these are real needle-in-a-haystack types of guesses.

- Try putting the machine in bobbin-winding mode and running the motor. Still slow?
- Examine the springs connected to the brushes. Are they deformed?
- Remove the brushes and ensure the brush tubes are nice and clean. If there's gunk or excessive powder in there, that can jam the brushes up and prevent them from making the appropriate amount of contact with the commutator.
- As a last-ditch effort, try rotating the brushes 90 degrees and re-inserting them. I know you feel you've already got them in the proper orientation, but if the motor's already running poorly, it will not hurt to try this.

I have two requests for you:

1) Please let us know how it goes. It's a bit frustrating when you put the time in to try to help others--and then you never hear back from them. All of us here hope you can get the machine running tip-top, so we're invested!

2) Please let us know what it is you did that got the motor running after your first post in this series, when it wasn't running. Any little bit of information on what you did to fix something can help others who were in the same boat.

thanks,

Hi Rain,

Thanks so much for your response to my question. After we read your response we decided to go back to step one and start over. This time we won't cut corners. I am going to order new brushes tomorrow so it will take a few days for us to get the parts and try your suggestions.

Unfortunately, we are in Michigan so bringing the machine into your shop would be a long ride. Thanks again, for taking the time to respond to my email. My husband and I are huge fans of your site. We'll be sure to let you know about our progress.

Sincerely,
Angela and Chris

the Hi Folks
Here is my update on my Singer 201. Well Rains was right, we did take short cuts by trying to use the old brushes and insulating the existing wires in the motor. After we started over with fresh brushes and fresh wires the motor was purrring like a kitten. In fact when I threaded her and got her sewing it almost seems like the motor is funning faster than the machine can sew. I get the impression that the motor is racing but the machine can't or won't sew that fast.

My next project on this machine is to work on the tension assembly. I know that there should be some wiggling going on in the disc area but it is really loose and doesn't seem write.

Thanks to all for your help
Angela

Here is a link to a really great manual for tensions: http://www.tfsr.org/pub/technical_in...echanism_2.pdf I printed it out and then enlarged it - tensions aren't really all that hard to do and the information there is excellent - if you can follow a pattern you can do this.