why dropped stitch at start of design?

Robert Young · August 15th, 2014, 11:12 AM

what makes a machine drop a stitch at the starting point of a design before it moves to the actual place the digitizer wanted to start sewing? I searched this forum and could not find a thread on it.. and Google was no help (odd right! LOL)

minimalist · August 15th, 2014, 11:52 AM

Robert,

We will need more info to attempt a diagnosis. I'm guessing that the person requested a design from you and they are having this problem. Possible causes?

Resized design on their software?
Changed the order of the design?
Somehow a trim or jump got added?
Design opened and saved in another format?

I've run across this a couple of time on designs that were done previous to me. I've found jump stitches or cuts with a tie at the beginning of a design. Don't know how they got there or why but I eliminate the problems when I find them.

If the user is having the same problem with more than one and can't find the issue in the software it might be time for a soft or hard machine reset.

aardvark7 · August 15th, 2014, 04:35 PM

When you say 'Drop a stitch', do you mean miss one out or to actually make a stitch so that thread trails instead of a neat start?

In either case it could be software or a physical machine fault.

The most frequent cause is simply that the software used has created a wrong code at the start of the design. This could be just using a different format (i.e. DST or PES or FDR) that your machine might not interpret correctly, or that the digitizer has specified the wrong machine, prior to creation.

It was so much easier in the days of paper tape when there were few codes and it was easy to read by hand! Now there are dozens of different formats and a simple conversion can cause chaos, plus some older machines need to be told to regard stops as colour changes, what to do with trims and so on!!

In such cases it is best to go back to the digitizer and ask him to verify his set up or try a different format. You could also ask the machine manufacturers if they know of any machine incompatibility.

As to a physical problem, diagnosing depends upon how it manifests. If it is a multihead and doesn't occur on all heads then it could be the jump stitch not operating correctly at start up: the lever doesn't disengage causing the needle bar to drop and forming a stitch.
This would be the case for making a stitch, but it is simply vice versa for not sewing, where the needle bar doesn't engage properly and so the stitch doesn't form.

Of course, this can be much harder to figure out on a single head machine, as it's not always apparent if the machine is doing something wrong. If two heads are behaving differently to each other then you can be certain where the fault lies!

Robert Young · August 16th, 2014, 09:09 AM

We have one distributor who is getting the one stitch with a trail from the center center instead of a neat start. As they are not the embroiderer I have a feeling one of the transfer issues Minimalist brought up is the culprit. I have asked them to check and am awaiting a response.
We digitize in Wings and output a dst to them.... for us to correct the issue we call the dst up in Wilcom Truesizer and resave as a dst... THAT dst apparently does not have the rogue stitch.
Maybe their embroiderer's software is a Wilcom variation.. so from our Truesizer (wilcom to wilcom) there is no problem... but when they use our Wings dst there is? thinking out loud.

embthreads · August 17th, 2014, 07:22 AM

Pulse is known to drop a stitch when using some stock designs. The known fix is to coral the stitch and delete it.

AJST · August 18th, 2014, 08:04 AM

Some machines throw a Ghost Stitch at the beginning of the design. I have seen it happen mostly on Chinese machines but have seen it on SWF, and Tajimas. If you update the software on the machine it sometimes (not always) fixes the problem.

After reading this thread I am going to have to look at the design a little more thoroughly.

embdigitizing · August 28th, 2014, 01:28 PM

Dropped stitches are a fun addition to a lot of projects, including scarves, belts, headbands and tank tops.

Patterns that use dropped stitches generally have you knit a couple of plain rows on either side of the dropped stitch row to add stability and structure to the finished piece.

You can also add dropped stitches as a design element to make a plain project a little more interesting. Knitting is all about using your imagination to make unique knitted items, so don't be afraid to drop some stitches on purpose.

embroidery digitizing services

Tom G · November 2nd, 2014, 11:43 AM

each machine interperts digitized designs differently thats why when one machine counts 5300 stitches in a design and the next 4950