I had some family hand me an old Bernina sewing machine (a Nova, looks like a 900 but I cannot confirm this). It's not working. The pedal is simply not allowing it to function. Apparently, they had taken the pedal to a repair shop, and the shop turned them away, because it was only used for a short time, and the parts stopped being made a long time ago.
Granted, they have a few extra sewing machines, but they REALLY like this light weight machine, and were hoping I could get the pedal fixed. It's called an "air pedal". It seems to function just like other sewing machine pedals, but it "floats", or at least, it is supposed to. This one just floated without connection. So, I took it home, and promptly took the thing apart.
First thing I noticed is that there is a barbell of sorts used to connect the pedal to the actual hinge hardware, and it is not in position. Problem?
Perhaps. The blue circle is around the barbell. The green circles are two concave holes where the two ends of the barbell are supposed to go (think of a hip joint - one round ball and one socket).
Here are some more views of the two halves.
Let's put it back together in what we'd call "the Right Way" (trademarked?) and see what happens.
Here we can see the ball joint in it's natural habitat, with the actual pedal ready for installation.
So, was it the actual problem? Yes. The machine actually started up this time. It immediately stopped, which sent me home with the whole machine for some electrical tests.
I flipped it over, and a pin fell out (one you might see holding sleeves on a brand new dress shirt that is being opened, not machinists pins or internal pins). I paused, flipped the machine upright, plugged everything in, and hit the pedal.
Nothing.
While holding the pedal, I rotated the manual crank wheel, and it started working. That's it - a pin held the whole thing hostage. It's back online.
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