While the old 830 (record) is a basic home machine, for those unfamiliar with the modern 820/830 -- it has a full 12" of throat space to the right of the needle. It has a nice, wide stable platform (even without the embroidery unit) and many nice features, including the fully auto threader and wonderful lighting that makes it very desirable to me with vision issues.
It is big and heavy, yes it is! But even without rails I feel I can do a pretty good job with a queen sized project -- if I was physically up to doing one anyway.
But the model didn't go over well, there do seem to be some lemons out there, I don't think mine is one. It was originally bought by a friend of mine, she kept it just a bit too long to decide that although she is a big Bernina fan, she didn't like this one. The dealer offered her less than half on trade in, and my friend said "well, I'll give you half!". She used it for 5 years and ultimately she also went to a different Bernina model and gave it to me with the warning that it was fussy with threads, but seemed to like Aurifil.
I worked "Bernie" hard in piecing and quilting and did pretty good for a year, minor annoyances. But then I kept getting a threading error. I'd click the picture, hold the thread and go for a bit until the error code came back on. Of course I did all the usual stuff, cleaning and rethreading and all that, until finally one day the sensor finally went and the machine shut down completely. Wish I could say that I got it fixed with the thread sensor but still had issues. I'll have to look for it, but there is a thread where I shared the "cap" that finally seemed to solve my problems, at least with that brand of thread. I needed just a bit more tension that I could get, so I threaded the spool through an empty bobbin, and then plopped it on top of the spool/holder and threaded as usual. For the first time in a year, I was able to sew consistently and without popping that error message every few seconds to minutes.
Lil'Chickadee mentioned the threading. Is a good point. It should thread easily and consistently. If not, there is an easy way to reset it. If I can't get it first try and have made sure I am both threaded and the needle is in correctly, I do that.
This is a fairly long but pretty good video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUxur-aptWA
Edit if I'm back in time: Here's the thread with Cranky Bernie and his hat.
Quilting threads
Read the other responses, apparently I did not have the spool in the right position but all I know is the hat worked!