Motor Lagging? Brother SQ9050
 

Oh my. The Husband bought me a Brother SQ9050 for a back up machine about three months ago. I do a LOT of piecing, but I really haven't done a ton of free motion quilting on it. Over the past three or four days I've put about 4 hours at a time into quilting a couple holiday wallhangings...now the motor seems almost like it's lagging or slow. It goes through spurts, where it seems slow, like it's on the verge of croaking, then comes back to life. I've unplugged it, checked all the plugs and attachments, cleaned the bobbin area...are these Walmart Brother's really so flimsy that free motioning a few wall hangings would burn it out? I mean, albeit, it's dense quilting, but I didn't think I'd kill it THAT quickly.

Or maybe there's another issue I could have overlooked?

Anyone experience this?

I have had mine over a year with no problems have sewn on her a lot of hours. Some have FMQ. I use my big machine for that but have practiced some bobbin work on her with FMQ and didn't have a problem

If its only 3 months old it is still under warranty and I would contact brother about it

I would contact brother, ive had my walmart brother for 16 years it still runs like the day i bought it. I sew alot!!!

Have you checked your manual to see if it needs oiling?

Yes I did check the manual first day I purchased it and it's a computerized machine so it has a set amount of oil that is supposed to last the lifetime of the machine.

I'm going to call Brother today and see what they say. I went through the list of trouble-shooting problems in the manual, none of them mention this crazy sound it's making! :( I gave it a rest overnight and am going to try it out again today and see if a break helped.

I would send it back since it is under warranty. Better now than when the warranty expires.

The belt might be slipping or loose.

JUST an update to help anyone who might have this machine - I have been sewing heavily for just over 8 years - so I'd like to think I'm not a total dope! LOL*

What happened was I dropped the feed for free motion and when I put them back up, they just didn't lock back into place right. I dropped them and raised them back up to be sure they were stable and it worked FINE! :)