Just joined this message board and curious to know if you ever got the machine to stop breaking thread. I have one that I bought used and kept having that problem too. I hate to say but after getting the machine checked out and being told it is a great machine in good working order, I still have the thread breakage. I am going to look for the HLx5 needles and try again. My machine and frame have been just sitting taking up space and I am considering sellling them. People have told me it just takes a lot of time and practice but very frustrating when you have to rethread every few seconds.