Glad to see this thread is still going. I have a Janome Artistic 18 and have had problems. Right now I believe it is a timing issue, but the dealer is over an hour drive. I will have to call on Monday. When the needle thread goes down it does not pick up the bobbin thread. Isn't that timing? The manual is so lousy that DH and I can't tell what to do. I have quadruple checked everything and am positive nothing happened to cause this.
I really wanted an Innova, but the dealer is 100s of miles away, so DH was leary. My dealer is good, but much more knowledgeable on Janome sewing machines. Feeling out on a limb right now and very frustrated. Thanks for listening.