Viking Sapphire 835 help please
 

A friend has this machine. Yesterday she said after sewing a few minutes she ended up with quite the birds nest of bobbin thread. She rewound bobbin; rethreaded upper and lower thread a couple of times and still having same issue. Told her it sounded like there might be a tiny piece of thread stuck somewhere and maybe could use a good general cleaning. Told her to use vacuum and not canned air in the bobbin area. Being the good little do bee that she is, she read the manual and it said to drop the feed dogs when cleaning. She did this, cleaned out all the lint, etc. and now the feed dogs will not come back up! I went to see if I could figure out anything to no avail. Checked to make sure the FMQ settings had not been changed (and they were not plus no pop up menu to that effect); turned the machine on/off several times; took apart bobbin area several times. Don't know what else to do. Any hints or clues? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Off to look online some more now. TIA

i had the 850and loved it. I would call a local dealer. you have done everything I know. I only gave mine up to get the diamond.

Do you need to start sewing to have the feed dogs come up?

Also, when she threads the bobbin, she should make sure that 1. the bobbin is threaded correctly, and 2. that she hears a little click when she threads the "clip" in the front.

Janet

It sounds like her thread is jumping out of the take-up lever... if she does take it in to the dealer there is a free fix for that where they add a little guard to prevent the thread from coming off. Also Janet's comment on making sure that you hear the "click" when pulling the bobbin thread thread through the tension area is important. If thread nests on the bottom it's usually a top tension issue. I can almost always hear a clunking sound when my thread jumps off the take-up lever. I have an 830 and a Diamond and I love them both...

This was DH's suggestion as well. Just passed that along to her. Hopefully that will do it.

I have a Platinum and never had this issue. I guess I didn't read thoroughly enough because I've never dropped my feed dogs to clean the bobbin area - just take it apart and pick/brush out what I can. Another friend has an old Kenmore and was having tension issues and it was a teeny piece of thread stuck in the bobbin case. Took me quite a while to find it after fiddling with tension settings. Got out the piece of thread, reset the tension settings back to 'normal' and it was all good. Hence my suggestion to the Sapphire friend to clean the bobbin/upper thread areas.

I have the 870 and you have to start sewing before the feed dogs come back up.

I have a Sapphire 875Q and (knock on wood) have never had a problem yet (that wasn't caused by myself) so I can't help. Hope you get it figured out. How frustrating.

I just exclaimed "(expletive) yes, I love the internet!" Thank you for posting this. I just brought my new Sapphire 835 home yesterday and was tinkering with it today to get used to it. I couldn't get the tension right to save my sanity. The bobbin thread kept coming up through the fabric. I rethreaded and rethreaded and even called the dealer. Google found options that pretty much said 'take it in' - $1000 and I already have to take it in?? Last ditch effort to put the bobbin in again and try this 'click' sound...GOT IT!!! That was it.

Thank you ALL so much for putting in the time and effort to help. Means the world to me. Well, at least $1000. ;)

I'm glad you found the answer - and I'm surprised your dealer didn't know. Enjoy your Sapphire!

Janet