The not so good news about my Pfaff 300e

The cat is not amused.

In my last post, I shared the joy that I'd repaired my Pfaff Smart 300e and I couldn't wait to begin stitching. Well, it's not all good news.

Blinded by the sheer delight that the machine was actually working I forgot one small thing. I needed to hook it up to my computer to transfer my lovely self made design. This is where the problems have started. I can't for the life of me find the original disc that came with the machine. We've moved 5 times since I bought the machine so it could be anywhere. I didn't think not having the disc would be too much of a problem as the internet has a world of information about device drivers and I'd surely be able to find the one I was looking for...

I should be so lucky!

I can't find the disc or the drivers ANYWHERE. I have searched and trawled the internet for the past 3 nights without any success. I've found numerous blog posts over the years by people with the same problem and it seems to be un-fixable.

My lovely threads, waiting to be used...

I phoned Pfaff UK this morning and the chap I spoke to was nice enough but bluntly told me that without the disc, my machine is virtually useless! Thanks Pfaff - massive help! (that conversation sent me into a mini sulk so I went as cleaned the bathroom... as you do) Yeah, OK, the machine comes with a few pre-set designs in its minimal memory but that's not what I want it for. I can't even purchase a replacement disc as the machine is long discontinued. My only hope is to find another owner of a Smart 300e and kindly get them to copy the disc for me.

And that's where I am now. Registering and posting on numerous embroidery, sewing and craft forums and websites in the hope that I find someone else on this planet who hopefully uses those sites and who can help me in my struggle.

So I have a couple of hundred pounds worth of machine that it looks like I won't be able to use.

Humph!

It's aliiiiive! The embroidery machine is back from the dead.

About 5 years ago I bought myself a Pfaff 300e embroidery machine. It was an ex-display model and the lady at the shop kindly gave me a demonstration to see it working before taking it home. You can imagine my frustration when I brought it home and it worked once. And that was it. Once. And to add salt to the wound, the shop closed around a year later meaning I couldn't go in and ask for help.

I tried everything. I mean, everything in my limited knowledge of sewing machines at the time to fix it. I had lots of tantrums. Hundreds of snapped needles. To my frustration I kept getting an E14 error message - 'thread break'. I would re-thread and re-needle and nothing worked. Sadly to say, I gave up trying.

Fast forward 5 years. We're due to move house (hopefully) soon and I've been having a good clear-out. When I brought the dreaded machine downstairs, my husband saw it and said "oh, you're trying that again are you?". He obviously remembers the tantrums and tears well. I stated that if I couldn't get it to work this one last time I would sell it on - as it's effectively useless to me.

I set it up and attempted to sew a preset design. The same thing happened, the machine would do a few stitches, jam up, give me the error message and refuse to restart. When I re-threaded it would do the same and then snap the needle. I thought, it MUST be the tension... so I tried again, and again, and again, and again.

But thankfully I stayed calm this time.

I then noticed that the top thread wasn't picking up the bobbin thread. So I removed the baseplate and had a rummage around the bobbin area. I was using the correct bobbins and everything looked fine. So I slowly lowered the top needle and watched the mechanism move around in the bobbin and then spotted the issue. The hook in the bobbin mechanism wasn't quite in line so my needle was coming all the way down and back up without it catching the thread!

So I slowly adjusted the mechanism while lowering and raising the needle. I managed to get the mechanism right in the spot where the needle is at its lowest and it finally caught the thread. I quickly screwed it all back together and apprehensively tried again.

It only blinkin worked!

I am so so pleased that I've managed to fix it. I was loathe to sell something I paid a couple of hundred pounds for without even using it.

But that's not the end of my problems... oh no...

I want to create custom embroideries and stupidly, the only decent and reasonably priced programs are for Windows computers only. I'm a Mac user and there's not a single Windows machine in this house. So I'm stumped for the time being. Typical. The machine works now I can't use it to do what I wanted it to do in the first place!

I'm currently researching a program called Parallels that allows you to run Windows alongside your Mac OS so you effectively have a half/half machine. So far... it's looking quite expensive.

Bummer!