Sticky foot pedal
 

Hi. I have a Pfaff 1222e that's had a sticky foot pedal. It's really hard to increase or decrease speed smoothly. It'll either go slowly begrudgingly, or zoom ahead le mad. My question is, is it ok to open up the pedal and oil/clean it?

Sorry about that! If you google for the pedal, there are several sources - in case nothing can fix yours. Good Luck!

I don't know about oiling it, that would depend on the moving parts it contains. But you can definitely consider cleaning it. My friend Cindi opened hers up and found a big mess of hair and dust; cleaning it up improved the performance.

I have cleaned out a couple of foot pedals. One I was able to just put a drop of oil on the hinges and it was fine the other one turned out to have an electoral problem and had to be replaced. Be very careful. If the wiring looks even the slightest bit challenged it is not worth playing with.

There aren't many parts involved in the "hinge" of a foot pedal so not a lot to cause sticking. The pivot is crude, so maybe there's some wear which lube won't help. The return spring can generate some friction so a bit of sanding and some grease on the rubbing parts. Or the rheostat can become sticky which a cleanup will help. You can cycle your pedal by hand and if there's an issue you can normally feel it quite easily. Does it cycle through it's motion smoothly?

I strongly suggest though that the trouble may be in the machine itself. If it's in need of a good cleaning and oil change, it can take a lot of current to get past the sticktion and get it moving. When it finally breaks loose the pedal is in a position to produce faster speeds. so it's really flying.

I had a used Janome and that happened to me. It would start running and go really fast and I could not control it and had to shut the machine off to get it from running away. I took it to my LQS and they replaced the foot pedal and luckily it was under warranty. You might want to check out the warranty on your machine but I would guess that the foot pedal needs to be replaced.