I’m not sure when or if I’ll get my first servo, since I’m certainly not against them. I just haven’t had one yet. And I should point out that a factory-made speed reducer (2-groove step pulley on a bracket) is about the same cost as a servo at around $150, so the speed reducer isn’t any real savings. And then too, many larger machines are set up with both a servo and a speed reducer to increase slow-speed torque.
I hope that we get some input from the quilters that use industrial machines for quilting, to see what their take is on the power option.
One thing that may lend to some of the dissatisfaction of clutch motors, is when one is put back into use after an extended period of non-use. It seems to me that they begin to respond much better after being what I call “run-in” again. Some operators that started out with a clutch motor often stick with them simply because they’ve gotten comfortable with them and use them on a regular basis, even though they could switch to a servo if they wanted to do so.
I’m an intermittent user of clutch motor machines because I mostly just do repairs with mine, and I only work part-time anyway (only when I have to). My wife uses a couple of them at least 2-3 times weekly, so she keeps those two limbered up in good shape and they respond nicely. On the other hand, I use muscle-powered machines whenever I can, just because I enjoy using them, but when I tried treadling my Singer 111W153 compound feed walking foot machine, it was difficult to treadle and I was afraid that I was going to break my treadle pedal by fighting with it. That machine turns very freely and so does the treadle, but I think that it takes more torque to actually sew than my treadle was designed to do. I could treadle it all day long without anything under the needle, but when I put some leather under the needle, the torque just wasn’t there and it took a great deal of effort.
Your point about the servo helping to resell a machine is a good one, and I agree. But, I don’t plan on selling mine, so the added expense of a servo could only be justified if it was needed for my machines to achieve the function that I use them to accomplish.
CD in Oklahoma