Foot controls do get old. That is the weak link on my 37 year old Viking and I've been told there is no Viking replacement for it as they no longer support a machine that old with parts. One repair person told me I could get an aftermarket for it for $80-$100. In this particular foot control there is a resistor in it that regulates the amount of juice that goes from the electrical plug to the machine. There is a way to adjust the amount but on this particular one it has been adjusted to it's furthest amount. The foot pedal is overheating after I use it a bit. We were told by another repair person that the resistor could be bypassed with no danger. We haven't tried that yet.

Some machines have easily replaced foot controllers, others not so much so. The foot controller to my Viking uses the same cord as the one that plugs into the wall and then a special plug that goes into the machine. My newer Janome has separate cords for the power and the foot controller and the end of the foot controller is like a jack.

You need to be careful when getting a new foot controller, even if you splice and wire it in to an existing cord, that is it compatible with your machine. It not a one size fits all kind of thing. It's tempting when you do an on-line search on foot controls to be lured by the $20+ ones when you've been quoted $100+ at the repair shop to get a new one for your particular machine but be careful doing that.

I have a 50 year old pedal that came with an antique machine I bought. It did the same thing. My electrician husband took the cover off and cleaned the electric contacts. Copper contacts will get a corrosive buildup on them that prevents proper current flow. A Q-tip dipped in alcohol should clean them to a nice shine and end the problem. If they are really bad you can use a pencil eraser and erase the buildup followed by the alcohol.

I have a newer machine and my footpedal went on me. It wasn't working right but what got me to take it in was when I was at the ironing board the needle started going up and down by itself.

With my first Bernina that lasted over 30 yrs I had to replace the foot pedal not only once but twice. I sewed so much that they just wore out. And so did the machine.

Thank you all SO much......much like my foot pedal I am also much older....thought maybe i was just losing it.
Will try taking it apart and cleaning first.....then will see what happens.

The last time my Bernina was serviced, I asked them to clean my foot pedal. The machine would sometimes keep running after I removed my foot from the pedal. The cleaning solved that problem. I replaced the foot pedal on my Featherweight because I wanted a foot pedal more like the one on my Bernina.