BobbinCam Installation

[jimerickson]

I received my BobbinCam package and installed it on my I/S turbo, electronic channel lock equipped, Ult2. It works pretty neat. Because Zelda, my machine, is so different from a standard machine, mounting of the monitor and routing of the wires was a challenge. The installation looks pretty good, a lot of wires, but reasonably tidy. Only time will tell how handy it will be. I'm having a little bit of trouble seeing the 3 dimensions of the stitch, but I did run it over some really poor tension, and the bad stitches showed up very nicely.

After I use it a while, I'll let you'll know what I think. Regards. Jim

[jimerickson]

Well I quilted my first quilt this morning using the newly installed BobbinCam. It was a twin size Christmas Quilt (I'm not behind, the lady who brought it to me is). I pinned it on the frame, chose my thread colors, and began to baste it on. I had a hard time seeing the stitch line. I decided that the camera wasn't alined with the needle, so I repositioned it, and completed basting the top end of the quilt. I was having problems clearly seeing the stitches. I turned my overhead lights off, then the machine light off. The picture improved a little, but I was still having trouble seeing the stitches. I fiddled with the adjustments of the monitor, brightness, contrast, and color. I got a picture I liked a little better, but it was still very difficult to see the stitches. What I could see seemed to look OK, so I began quilting. An over all meander. I finished the first run, and rolled the quilt. When I looked at the stitches on the back, I realized why I was having a problem. I could barely see the stitches. The thread color I chose virtually disappeared in the backing fabric, no contrast at all.

I'll have to try with a thread/backing combo that has more contrast. By the way, the stitches look great, so I don't know whether I would have been able to see a problem if there had been one or not.

I discovered that the machine light created the most problem with the bobbin cam. The overhead lights had some effect, but not much. I also discovered that if I put my hand between the machine light and the stitches that I wanted to look at, I didn't need to turn the light off.

I'll keep you all posted as my experience grows. Regard. Jim

[MtnBarb]

Thanks for the update. Good to know others experiences.

[Wingsthing]

Jim I sent you an email.

[jimerickson]

I quilted another quilt yesterday, and the thread/backing combo was different. (light blue backing, dark blue thread) I could see the stitches just fine. Now all I have to do is learn to recognize stitch quality on the monitor LOL.

There's a bit of a learning curve. I may experiment with the position of my camera. Jim

[jimerickson]

Here's an up date on my BobbinCam.

I've had a chance to quilt a couple of quilts since I installed it, and I've become more comfortable with it. I felt like the magnification shown on the monitor was too great. I thought that if I moved the camera closer to the quilt the image size might be reduced. Not so! It got larger, so I left the camera where I had it mounted. I ended up changing the monitor setting from 16:9 to 4:3. The screen on the monitor was reduced as was the image. I feel more comfortable with that size. Still plenty big, but closer to the actual size of the stitch.

I haven't had a tension problem with Zelda so far, so I still don't know what a bad stitch looks like (that's not exactly true, originally I put a practice piece on that had plenty of poor stitches to look at, but haven't had it come up while quilting since I installed the BobbinCam). But I've used Zelda for an extended amount of time, and now have some feeling about how the BobbinCam will integrate into my quilting. Because the camera is off set from the needle by about 2 1/4", you can't immediately see your stitches, and if you're stitching from left to right you won't see them at all until you stitch right to left. I made a point to try and look at the monitor when I moved the machine.

It's been my experience that tension issues crop up after changing the bobbin more often than any other time, so I made a point to try and check my stitches on the monitor soon after I started with the replaced bobbin to verify that the bobbin changed didn't create a problem.

I have become comfortable with the new equipment. I'm confident that it will help me ID a problem before the problem gets really big. I'm sure that it will save me time in the future, and help improve my quilting. An investment well worth the cost. Jim

[Oma]

Jim, you just perfectly described everything I went through with my BobbinCam except I didn't have any light problem at all. Like you, I did have to readjust where I had positioned the camera and I had to adjust the lens to fix the focus. Like you, I can't immediately see my stitches because I had to have enough clearance for my Hartley platform, but I can move the machine a tad and see them very well. I couldn't see through my platform until I cleaned it really well and now that's not a problem either, it's very clear.

I've only done one quilt since installing it and the thread blended very well with the fabric so it was more difficult to see. I hesitate to say I never have a tension problem because you know what happens when you say that, but APQS has an awesome machine and it runs fantastically. Knock on wood. LOL.

All in all....I like it and it's going to work well for me.