Sunday, April 24, 2016

Brother carriage settings from the underside

Lots of people get machines second-hand, which need some TLC, and they don't know what things are supposed to look like on the underside. I thought I'd post pictures of some of my carriages in the hopes it might help diagnose faults. These pictures are of the KH260, which has the split-button / punch lace feature. Note that these are just pictures of the cam buttons being pressed - in order to make the patterning read from the punchcard, KC or SM would also need to be pressed (see later pics). As always, click on the picture for a clearer view.

Key:
Needles in A (Non-Working Position)
Needles in B (Working Position)
Needles in D (Upper Working Position)
Needles in E (Holding Position)


bro_n

This is the underside of the carriage set for N or stocking stitch. Note that any needle in HOLD (the blue line) will knit back.

bro_t

This is the carriage set to tuck - note that needles in B don't move out as far (ie they tuck). Needles in D and E position knit.

bro_f

This is the carriage set for fair-isle. Needles in B position take a slightly shorter route and knit the yarn in feeder A. Needles in D or E position knit the yarn in feeder B.

bro_pl

This is the carriage set for punch lace - this is a very similar set-up to the fairisle one. Only later machines have this function. Both yarns knit together in certain areas, and the second yarn only knits in other areas.

bro_p

This is the carriage set to slip - needles in B position hardly move and therefore do not knit.

bro_h

This is the carriage set to hold - any needle in E position will remain in E position.

bro_Nsw

This is the carriage in N position. Note also the pink plastic part - this is the end needle selection cam. It's not always pink though, sometimes it is yellow.

bro_kc

This is the carriage in KC (Knitting Card) position

bro_sm

This is the carriage in SM (Single Motif) position - not available on all machines.

1 comment:

ItMakesYouSmile said...

This is utterly BRILLIANT!!! I took tons of photos of the underside of my Brother 588 carriage in order to do just what you've done. Your graphics are beyond excellent. It's a huge challenge to show paths in all the different carriage settings for all the different needle positions, but you have nailed it!

Well done, and thank you.