Kathalynn Posted August 13, 2012 Report Share Posted August 13, 2012 Hi Everyone, We have worked several evening on leveling my table. No matter how level we get it the machine still slides to the center. Slides from the ends about1/4 of the way down then it will stop. My husband says it is because the table is so long with no support in the center. 12' table Any advise?? Thanks in advance and Happy Quilting Kathalynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmcclannan Posted August 14, 2012 Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 Your table is probably level. More than likely it is the cord drawing the machine toward the center of the table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffq-lar Posted August 14, 2012 Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 Are you Blissed? Or do you have M&M wheels? In either case, the wheels are so smooth the weight of the cord will drag the head towards the outlet, as Julie explained. A Blissed table doesn't have the cross-bracing a regular table has. When I park my machine off the quilt at night I clamp it stationary with one of the backer clamps. If I want it to stay put while I'm marking--I engage the horizontal channel lock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linda G. Craig Posted August 14, 2012 Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 I do exactly as Linda R does. I do have the Bliss and, yes, the ever so slight weight of the electrical cord, which is oriented at the centre of my table, causes Millie to move slightly toward the centre until the weight of the cord is settled. Mark cleared that up for me when I asked the same question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathalynn Posted August 14, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 Thanks everyone I really appreciate the help. Since I am in the padlock business I took a padlock blank and warpped it in batting to make a weight and when I park the machine at one end of the table I just put the weight down and it holds it in place. Yes I do have Bliss. Nice to know we aren't going nuts or the table isn't up to par for the machine. My husband will be pleased to know that he dosent't have to do major metal work to correct this problem. LOL He was talking about adding support beams. Just seemed like sooo much work if there was an easier answer. Again Thanks! Happy Quilting Kathalynn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Linda S Posted August 14, 2012 Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 If you have a regular table, your center cross bracing might not be tight enough. After a few years of stitching, I had to tighten mine up again, as I got a little sag in the middle of the table -- understandable as I have a 14' table. All has been well every since! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnCavanaugh Posted August 14, 2012 Report Share Posted August 14, 2012 Kathalynn, If you have the Bliss table, the steel ball bearings sense even the slightest motion. Cord "drift" is the main cause. However, with the Bliss you can actually help control the drift by not working so hard at "table level" as much as you do toward keeping the machine from rolling. The table can actually be "unlevel" with the Bliss and you won't notice it at all. Normal drift of about a foot is common due to the nature of extruded rails. If yours floats more than that, try moving the machine to an end of the table (remove the power cord so it is not influencing the drift). Then adjust the legs until the machine no longer drifts more than a foot. It's OK if a front foot is higher than the back, for example, or the left is higher than the right. You will not feel that difference with the Bliss drive. If you're still having trouble, by all means call us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fotch Posted August 8, 2014 Report Share Posted August 8, 2014 I know this is an older thread, but I hope Dawn or Amy…or any of our illustrious quilters will notice it to advise. We have a 2013 Bliss table and the head drift was/is driving me crazy. As mentioned in Dawn's response above, Angela Clark our local APQS dealer told me the same thing months ago…it's Ok to be out of level. After visiting APQS's booth at the Charlotte AQS show I realized their blissed Millie with the SR on stayed put when you took your hands off the wheel…not so with ours, it continues to stitch. Not one to leave well enough alone, a few nights ago I started to tinker with Millie. Starting from square one, I unplugged the head and moved it to the side it drifts from, then adjusted the table legs/feet all the way down…as I knew it would be, the table was level from side to side and front to back, but as I also knew would happen it drifted about 18". If plugged in it would drift almost 36". I should mention here that I have hydraulics, so my thought process was to make the adjustment to the cylinder legs not the table legs since they would be moving the table up and down essentially taking the table legs out of play. I methodically moved around the table adjusting the cylinders and sliding Millie from side to side for what seemed like hours until there was almost no drift on either side. Plugged Millie back in and noticed just a little drift from the left standing on the panto side and a little more from the right, which is normal for our machine, yet within the acceptable one foot range. At this point I'm feeling pretty good about my efforts…then I pressed the up button on the hydraulics and all bets were off!!! It's funny but not funny...I was under the table on my back looking up when I pushed the button and watched Millie roll over my head toward the center of the table. So I guess it's back to the drawing board... My question in all of this is, should I adjust the table legs and let the hydraulics lift from that out of level position or adjust the hydraulics after it has started to lift? I'm not too confident that the hydraulic legs are lifting all four corners at the same time so making the out of level adjustment from the lowest point doesn't seem to work. But if adjusted while under pressure will those adjustments hold when the table is lowered back to the floor? Guess I'll try that next. Any insight on this will be deeply appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnCavanaugh Posted August 11, 2014 Report Share Posted August 11, 2014 Hi Fotch, I'm sorry that the machine is rolling so much for you! Unfortunately the hydraulic lift may be the problem. It's designed to be "self leveling" so as you adjust its legs, the pump will compensate for the differences in leg height and will simply keep trying to level the machine. And in this instance, we're actually trying to override the "level" of the machine to keep the machine from rolling. I'll ask our engineer if he has any other suggestions to help. However, the only solution I can think of is to use the hydraulics to raise the machine to the most comfortable height that would accommodate a majority of your quilting, and then lower the table legs' leveling extensions down to the ground (as if you're not going to use the hydraulics any more and only used them to lift the table for this initial adjustment.) Next lower the lift so that the table weight rests on the foot pads of the legs, and then go around and "unlevel" the table as needed to get the drift under control. In this scenario, you couldn't lower the table any farther down that it already is, but you could theoretically still raise it up if you weren't already at the max height for the cylinders. But if you raised it, the hydraulic leveling would take over and you'd have a rolling machine again. I'll let you know if Mike (our engineer) has additional suggestions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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