If your machine gives you a buzz, even with good wiring, unplug the cord, rotate the plug and plug it back in. You just polarized the system, no more buzz.


Joe

I can't tell where you're from, but for $350, I'd say anywhere you go looking for a FW would get you a spanking brand new looking and running sewing machine. Anything over that is just gravy for the seller; and in my mind, they don't need gravy any more than I do.

Good luck as you search for your new baby. You will love love love it beyond description. I pulled one of mine out last week for piecing a quilt over a $350 Janome that doesn't have a full hour's use on it, and it came with the piecing foot that my FW doesn't have.

We've had this discussion several times here. You don't get to choose polarity with AC power. The polarity changes 120 times a second, it's why we call it alternating current. I'm pretty sure I know where this advice comes from as it pertains to these machines. There's a prominent website that states it but it's wrong. Dangerously wrong because it breed complacency and discourages people from properly evaluating their wiring.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...n-t246791.html

http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...w-t223435.html

ETA: goofed up. 120 cycles per second for 60hz current.

Never leave your FW plugged in when its not being used. Remember it has no on/off switch.

So then if the wiring IS good and you still get a buzz, then you should rip it all out anyway, put a new motor in it, have a certified, union card carrying electrician rewire the machine so you can use it safely ..... pardon the sarcasm, but I don't buy it.

I have several top of the line machines in great shape that will give you a buzz. The wiring is in perfect order. The motor is as well. To stop this all that's required is to rotate the plug in the wall. That does polarize the machine to match the power source.

It's the same concept as having a polarized plug wiring system that you always plug in the same way. When I get a buzz on a machine I rotate the plug in the wall and then mark the neutral side. After that I make sure to plug the machine in with the marked prong in the wide (neutral) slot of the outlet and ... no buzz.

Modern household wiring systems are polarized. That's why they use different colors in the house wiring. Red, White, Black, Green ... all go to polarize the system. That's why the wide slot in the outlets and the wide prong on the plugs, all to polarize the system. Yes, the current alternates, but it's still got a positive, and a neutral side.

I have also had many machines with bad wiring that was at fault. Gone through them carefully rewiring them as well. I've had several apart more than once trying to figure out why the buzz. When I did that I found NO shorts of any kind. No exposed wires. Nothing that would cause a short.
But, put the plug in the wall one way - get the buzz. Put the plug in the wall the other way - no buzz.

For the record, when I rewire a machine I solder all exposed wire so it cannot fray out from under the connection screws, or I use crimped and soldered on connectors. I check and double check all my connections so that there are no wires close enough to cause a short.
Inside the motors I make certain there are no wires touching the housing or any place where they should not touch.

I will also tell you this from personal experience; if you have a frayed wire, even a small one, and it touches another wire and shorts out when you plug it in, YOU'LL KNOW IT.

For those of you that are afraid of electricity, do this, then report back. When you get a buzz, have your machine checked out. If it checks out OK, put it back in the exact same place, and try again. If you still get a buzz, then flip the plug in the outlet. See what happens. I'll bet you don't get the buzz when you flip the plug.

Joe

Joe, Perhaps that's been your experience. In my experience, I've never not been able to resolve a "tingle problem".

The concern I have is the person who reads: and fails to evaluate the wiring and is hurt or killed as a result.

The fact is that people tend to plug in a lot of things that they really shouldn't. Encouraging someone to always have the wiring evaluated by someone qualified will never put them in harms way. Telling them that they can just flip the cord and all will be right with the world does potentially put them in harms way because fundamentally humans are lazy and will take the easy way nearly every time.

I have NEVER had one of my FWs (or other machines) tingle or any of the ones I've worked on after wiring problems were evaluated and corrected. I have tried the plug both ways to test. If it was a design feature, all would do it. If they don't all do it, the ones that do should be corrected.

Modern household wiring is not configured much differently (we use different materials but the basic configuration hasn't changed) than old as far as the power being delivered to a two prong device. Mostly because AC power is still AC power - a sine wave that alternates between the positive and negative 120 times a second.

The old knot and tube wiring was ungrounded but otherwise used black (hot) and white (neutral) wires. The new wiring uses black, white, and a ground (sometimes bare, sometimes green) that we don't make use of in this case. Red is rarely used in the situation we're discussing. It's usually for a split plug, a three way switch or in the case of 220v wiring - for the hot in the second phase of the 220.

Positive and Negative wires are a DC concept.
Positive is NOT the same as Hot
Negative is NOT the same as Neutral

The Hot wire of an AC system is responsible for both the positive and negative - because again as stated AC cycles 120 times a second - it's like a push / pull system this is what creates the sine wave I mentioned above.

There are some very good analogy explanations here:
http://www.controlbooth.com/threads/...-neutral.7724/

Interesting question for an electrician though polarity must have something to do with it. I can rewire safely though I must admit my understanding is lacking. There must also be issues with non polarized plugs being somewhat unsafe as to cause their demise or limited use today.

Jon

tammi,
this is the stuff that I yearn to know more about! Can I come visit you for a couple of weeks? ;) I find this all so fascinating and want to become proficient at it. But at my age, I kinda need it beat into my brain. Lol!

I'd like to give my two cents worth on the cost of featherweights....I've been into FW's since the 80's. I paid in the $350 range for the ones I own. I've watched for years and the ONLY time I was able to pick one up for less than that was recently I found one for a friend and paid $175 for it. It came with no attachments and no case and the lacquer was a bit worn. I also completely cleaned, adjusted and oiled for no charge. I hear these stories about buying one for $20. That's great! But I don't really think that is the norm. Or maybe I'm just jealous or in the wrong part of the country, lol. It's funny how regional sewing machine costs can be. I pick up mint looking Redeye's for $20 when others say they can't touch one in their area for $100. Even with all that said, I would love to find cheaper FW's. But please don't scoff at those prices of $350. That isn't out of whack for the market.

My cousin is a retired electrician. I call her if I have questions (usually they're "WTH were they thinking? Wait, is that even allowed?!!?" issues with this house!) but she usually just tells me I knew what I needed to do and why was I asking her. ;) She once told me that if she wasn't retired, she'd have loved to have me as an apprentice.

Polarity does factor in, it's just not in the same way as DC. DC has a positive wire and a negative wire.
AC has positive and negative on the hot wire and neutral or "0" on the other wire.

Non-polarized plugs are still around. My laptop for instance. Or one of them. Others are coming finally with 3 prong plugs. Also, almost any phone or tablet charger I can think of is 2 prong non-polarized.

You can come and stay as long as you want as long as you bring sunshine and warm weather with you! :)

You can learn a lot about power from.... the Home Depot Orange 123 book. That will start you out right with some of the common things in your house.I also have a Black and Decker Home Repair book too that's really good. Those books are probably 15 years old. They predate our move to this house and were around at least a few years in the first house. I was actually thinking of apprenticing as an electrician years ago and even have some materials and the code book here but I can't take the cold and a lot of the new construction is in half finished unheated buildings. Not here. Not for me these days.

Rain's tutorial on how to rebuild a 15-91 motor was an excellent tutorial on basic wiring and soldering. The skills also transfer to the non-potted motors.

I learned AC wiring first from my neighbor - a guy in the electronics corp in the army - he would come and show me how to change switches and outlets etc. He taught me the "bad" way though - without turning off the breaker first. I shocked myself pretty badly once when I grounded out the outlet putting it back in and started doing it the right way immediately afterward - even if he teased me for it every time. He's the one who drilled it into my head that Hot != Positive.

I've since wired or rewired a lot of this house including putting in a 2nd stove in the basement, running new circuits and wiring lights in my studio. The freaking doorbell got me though. The transformer it uses stays hot because it's on the incoming side of a switch and I had just turned the switch off to replace a couple of lights (a throwback to those bad habits my neighbor taught me. I hadn't done it in years and was lazy because the fusebox wasn't labeled with the circuits. It's labeled now and I always turn the breakers off AND test), not realizing that the transformer was even there attached to the light box.

I would have done the garage but the inspections and permit stuff was a pain if you wanted to do it yourself. Now I'm going to have to trace a bunch of wires though because the electrician put one whole wall of outlets on the wrong side of a switch and I discovered it after we insulated and put up pegboard/OSB.