Longarm not stitching from left-to-right? Might be a "thread-lock"....

I recently visited a client with a longarm that was not stitching in regulated mode - worked fine in manual. I looked at all the common items - cables plugged in, tires in place on the encoders, encoders making contact with the carriage (Y-axis) or Frame (X-axis) - everything checked out. This particular machine had a diagnostic tool that enables checking X and Y axis encoder activity - the Y encoder was fine but the X encoder - crickets.

I went to the rear and took a look at the encoder - all looked normal…until…the longarm was moved along the Frame and the encoder tire….DID NOT.. rotate - why?

I got out a penlight and could see some thread insider the encoder housing. I attempted to remove it with tweezers but - no way - “Houston, we have a Thread Lock”!

Picture 1 shows the rear of the X-axis Encoder - nothing noteworthy here.

Picture 2 shows a different story - the thread is wrapped so tightly around the front axle-mount and rear collar that even with extreme pressure the encoder wheel will not rotate. Though the thread could be seen through careful examination of the encoder while mounted on the carriage, to remove the thread and free up the encoder-rotation required removing the encoder (1 bolt with a tension spring - not too hard) followed by a lot of snipping, picking, pulling, and choice-perjorative-exclamations to remove the thread wraps.

So…if you lose X or Y axis detection by the stitch-regulation components of your longarm - check to ensure the encoder tires consistently roll from front-to-rear-to-front (Y-Axis) and left-to-right-to-left (X-Axis). If they don’t but are making good contact with the carriage or Frame - something like a “thread Lock” has stopped the rotation - check it out, clear the problem, and….

Quilt On!