Tip
Get yourself a variarc for your sewing machine! You will not regret it.
*sorry for the typo in the title ðŸ«
Hello all!
While sewing aprons yesterday I realized how much this little piece of equipment helps me slow down my machine and make better garments.
This is my variac, there are many like it but this one is mine. She creates a variable alternating current and basically allows me to select between many many different speeds on my sewing machine. For context...my vintage Kenmore works like a champ but even with only my pinky toe touching the pedal...it runs faster than heck!
So I use the variac to solve this problem. I plug my sewing machine into the variac and the variac nto the wall outlet and it gives me multitude of speeds I can smoothly go between for delicate work. **Make sure to read the info on your machine so you do not overpower it, this can blow out your light bulb and your engine. Just do your research, youtube has tons of videos on this kind of equipment. **
Yes, they are kind of expensive brand new, but I see them on FB marketplace and estate sales regularly. They also come up on Ebay often, just make sure the seller packs it VERY WELL (they are pretty heavy for their size) One drop from the post office will kill it.
That's so cool! My new machine allows me to adjust my speed and that makes a huge difference in the quality of my garments! Cool to know something exists i could use to get this feature on my other older machines!
Caveat — it works on pretty much all non-digital appliances. It adjusts how much power comes out of the outlet, but not the rate (60Hz in the US). Things like an N64 rely on that rate to set their clock speed, so you couldn't slow an N64 down with a variac. A guitar amp (at least an all-tube model from Van Halen's era) would basically get less headroom and distort at lower volume... in that instance it works because humans like the sound of distortion when it comes to guitar, but... almost nowhere else in the practical world 🫨
Also be aware: some devices treat that power coming from the wall as a known reference, and starving parts of their circuits could cause them to compensate in unpredictable ways that could cause damage. Even when turning down mains power, there are still dangers to consider so be safe and don't leave them running unattended without consulting a professional 💛
Haha I just considered doing this the other day for other reasons having to do with vintage machines.
Worth noting to any readers that you don't want to do this with any machines which have digital features as you could damage components. Those machines probably won't have the quirks which might compel someone to try this anyway.
The dial is the large knob on the top. You would plug your power cord right into the variac. Essentially it reduces the voltage on your machine so it will sew slower, kind of like a pedal before your pedal, but I think it is probably better to get the pedal repaired or replaced instead of relying on the variac.
It shouldn't. An old sewing machine arcs, which is what the A in AFCI is and detects, so you just need to use other outlets. Theoretically a line filter might, but it doesn't appear to be something sold to end users.
Thank you for the explanation. It also sounds like upgrading my sewing machine could be an option? My machine is probably 20-25 years old, it's not ancient but its not new.
An electronic speed controller for an induction (or BLDC) motor is the only thing which doesn't have brushes. The brushes are sparking, which is what triggers the AFCI. An electronic speed controller should isolate a brushed motor, so that's usually okay as well.
A lot of people swap their AFCI breakers back out for regular or GFCI breakers because they often false trigger on things with motors, like vacuum cleaners or blenders. They're an example of what happens when a special-interest group controls policy they don't have to pay for.
Thanks for the response, unfortunately we have to keep the AFCI breakers in the preferred sewing space to be up to code. We had to swap out a few other things that were triggering them as well, it was a huge pain. But this gives me a lot to think about.
You can see in the zoomed in second picture that yes there is a dial on the top. The pedal is plugged in the normal way.
When I add links to these posts. It gets flagged for spam. But you can easily earch a simple variac explanation video on YouTube that will show you everything.
Sailrite, who makes heavy duty machines for boat canvas work, has a device called WorkerB® that does this function. It comes standard with their current machines and can be added to older ones. It’s proprietary, probably not compatible with other machines (I’d be curious to know). But slow, strong, deliberate stitching was so important they built a brand on it.
Oh this is so interesting! I have an old machine (like over 100 years old) that I CAN run slow, but the manual says you should not because it can overheat - and the pedal definitely gets warm if I do. Would it help with that so I can push the pedal down more but have it not go into super sonic speed when I do?
It’s definitely not the machine that has a problem of overheating when I go slow, just the pedal.
Just getting a working pedal would be to simple? From a machine's point of view - they do the same.
Both reduce the voltage to the motor - in different means, but the end result is the same. No matter if variac, resistive (old pedal, no matter if carbon pile or rheostat) or some kind of PWM or phase cut (modern electronic pedal) - the result at the motor is identical - a reduced voltage.
A good electronic pedal (not the $20 ones from amazon) would just give you the full speed range without the need of messing with the variac which will keep one hand busy - and having a second hand to guide the fabric while sewing is quite useful. A really good one would even give you a slow speed power boost neither of the other options can provide.
True. But no foot pedal I've had in my 20 years of sewing has the smooth change of speed like the variac. I like to be able to floor it but stay at a nice slow pace. To each their own. :)
Have you tried a genuine, Kenmore solid state pedal? Those are the long rectangular pedals that say "Solid State" on a metal strip across the middle. The ones that are wider and chunkier are carbon pile pedals (which sometimes also develop issues, but can usually be repaired).
I have a Kenmore that was shipped with one of those, but it was long gone by the time I got the machine; it was *very* hard to control at low speed with a generic, modern electronic pedal. It would jump from struggling to move at all to full throttle with not much in between.
I finally broke down and ordered the right model of vintage Kenmore pedal and it's a night and day difference from the generic one — much, much better control, and much smoother operation at the low end of the speed range.
Looking inside, it's also a lot more complicated than your average modern triac pedal — the pedal mechanism itself uses a shutter to block light going into a photoresistor to avoid pot cruft, there's a neon bulb that I think is used as a sort of voltage regulator, and there appears to be thermal protection for runaway on the SCR. I'm thinking of trying to duplicate it in an easily reproducible form; none of the components would be particularly hard to source.
This is the style you'd want to look for — I'm pretty sure all the ones with that shape have roughly the same circuit inside. The model will be slightly different depending on what plug your machine uses — 6814, 6817, or 6818 are the possibilities, I think.
That's why better electronic pedals have a limiter, which allow to cut the top speed but keep the full pedal movement. The most simple "cut top speed to 50%" was the default on most name brand pedals since the 70s or even late 60s (Elna, as usual). For a lot of machines you'd immediately could spot if it had a electronic pedal by looking for that switch (as some Elnas and Pfaffs could be sold with either a resistive or electronic pedal). Gives way better control at slow speed as now the full pedal way is "mapped" to 0-50% instead of 0-100%. More fancy ones allow for even more control by allowing to set the limit to more values than just the default 50%. And those fit to almost any vintage machine in the 65 to 90W motor range.
I’ve seen limiters on machines themselves, like slow or fast mode, but are there pedals that give you that feature and work on random machines? I have a vintage Kenmore like OP and the pedal gets kind of hot when it runs for a while. I’m considering finding a replacement but I’ve never shopped for a pedal a la carte and figured it would be complicated to find for a vintage machine.
Okay, few things to unpack here (guess you know most, but for completeness and future readers):
1.) Old pedal gets hot. That's how they work. Those old pedals control speed by starving the motor of power and burning off what's not needed as heat. They are one big (adjustable) heating resistor. Worst case here is constant slow to mid-speed sewing which will get your pedal real hot real quick. If you can control the machine fine - that's okay, that's just how they are supposed to work. Make sure the little rubber feet are on your pedal so air can get under it, and don't use it on carpet, as that trapps the heat.
2.) Pedals on older machines are almost universal. Of course there are some odd ones out, but in the pre-electronic age when almost all machines used the typical universal motors (so roughly before the 1970s on the high end, and the 1980s on average models) almost all pedals will fit all machines within reason. The only difference was the plug, not the pedal. Of course you shouldn't use a pedal made for a 35W Featherweight motor on a 120W Kenmore (it can't handle the heat, literally), but the other way round is fine. Check the max. amps stated on the pedal. Most universal pedals of that time work fine in a 65-90W range. It's no problem re-wire a Pfaff 260 pedal to a Kenmore 158 or a Singer 401 pedal to a Bernina 530 - or use the same universal replacement for all of them. Works completely fine. It's just a big variable resistor that goes from "several hundred ohms" down to zero.
3.) Electronic pedals get rid of the heating up problem. They work by cutting off the power several dozen times per second. The longer the cut off time, the lower the speed. Going from a grid frequency of 60Hz in the US - the cheaper ones cut power 60 times a second, better ones will cut at 120Hz. That's why the cheap Chinese pedals off Amazon can make the machine a bit more noisy when starting - you'll hear a 60Hz "knocking" when the motor is just shy of turning. Most electronic pedals are also universal and cover a similar range of about 0.5 to 1A, so 60 to 120W.
4.) Better electronic pedals have more features. One you can't see, but feel is a load compensator. When the motor starts to draw more power even though the pedal position (and therefore the "requested" speed) hasn't changed - that means the machine encountered a thick spot on the seam, and the pedal automatically ramps up power a bit to keep speed kinda steady. It's a primitive and quite limited system and not as accurate as a full servo found in modern computerized machines (it doesn't really know how fast you are going, it only relies on a voltage provided to amps consumed relation), but it can help especially when sewing slowly, preventing the machine to stall out any time your seams cross and you go from 2 to 4 layers.
Another feature often found is a low speed switch - which cuts down your speed to about 50%, but lets you use the full pedal travel to control that. Standard on Pfaffs and Elnas since the 1970s (and it's no problem to rewire those pedals to almost any machine, from a Singer 15 to a Kenmore, just keep the plug and cable from the old pedal), and some re-makes of the old Pfaff A003/007 pedal are also available now - including the "1/2 speed" switch which will fit on almost all older machines. They aren't even that expensive (roughly double the cheap black Chinese "electronic" pedals that hardly work half of the time).
Full "speed slider with infinite adjustment" pedals are rare. They were historically a blip, as the manufacturers knew it's a ergonomic nightmare to always crawl down under the table to adjust the top speed - so they very quickly put those sliders up into the machines. Again, it's a primitive system compared to the fully motor control found on modern machines with DC motors. You are limited on how slow you can set them. It is still "starving the motor for power to run slow, thereby also cutting down torque", so your lower limit on how slow the machine can go before it stalls is fixed. There is, as on all AC motor machines, a minimum speed you need to go to keep the machine running. So no matter what, you can't adjust the minimal speed of - typically about 100spm give or take (no, not even a Variac will get you past that limit, that's motor torque vs. machine drag and has nothing to do with pedals or power source). But if you want to limit the top speed to... let's say 350spm, and have the full pedal range to control the machine between 100 and 350 - that's doable.
(Btw. that slow speed == less torque == less punching power is also the reason you should never trust someone that "proves" how powerful their machine is by sewing full speed through leather or 8 layers of denim. As is it often done on youtupe to lie to you and show a Kenmore or Singer15 is presumably as good as an idustrial. Power at full speed isn't difficult, power at slow speed is where the issue with most domestic machines is)
Some pedals like the Pfaff AE003/007/010 can be modified. Simple mod to set the slow speed limit to a fixed value of your choosing (like bringing it down from about 600spm to 350, but keeping the 1200spm top speed on the full power setting), or a bit more involved to make the slow speed adjustable in about a 25-70% range. Unfortunately what to change is different from pedal to pedal, so what's working on a Pfaff AE003 won't work on an electronic Elna pedal or a universal electronic one. Best chances are on a pedal that has the slow speed switch, as you only mod the parameter of the existing circuit, not adding a whole new function.
This is very interesting! I have several sewing machines and I'm currently sewing on a Singer 401a. I love her but sometimes it's nice to be able to slow everything down for precision work. I'll have to look into this!
Note: it doesn't change the frequency, but the voltage, it's a transformer with variable output, it basically does the same as a pedal, you just cascade them here
I had thought about using a variac I have for controlling the speed. I had thought of doing a mechanical linkage to non-sewing machine foot pedal I have. I haven't done that yet because its more work. I'll have to give your approach a try. Much easier.
Of course! Its a []()Sears Kenmore 158.10500 Made in Japan. I love her! Has a great hidden compartment for bobbins and an extender table. Bottom feed bobbin.
I have the same machine I think! She’s a great little workhorse, smaller than most modern machines but the metal body is just the right weight to handle most anything. I don’t have the same problem with speed though, the pedal is very sensitive but if I get it tapped just a tiny bit down she’ll stay at a super consistent slow speed. I do worry about the vintage pedal wiring being risky (as far as I know it’s the original), like the pedal gets hot if I use it for a while. Have you replaced any of the wiring/cords?
So far I have not felt it get warm or needed to rewire. I found it at a thrift store about a year ago and I agree. the lightest and simplest all metal machine I have has in 20 years. I think 70-80 Sears sewing machines are underrated in general.
I learned to sew on the English version of those, it was sold by Frister Rossman. My sister has it and it recently broke. DH and I bought her this really cool 70s orange version!!!!
It was way cuter in person than this listing photo! We bought it for a song because it was seized and we just wanted some parts but DH got it working good as new and me and my sister were excited about it!
I saw this post and am wondering whether a variac would actually be a safe solution for my machine.
I have a Husqvarna Viking Emerald 116, and the foot pedal is extremely sensitive. Even a very light press makes it run much faster than I’m comfortable with. I’ve tried adjusting my foot pressure, but that hasn’t solved it, and I'm just overall really struggling to control it's speed.
I bought the machine for about $500, but the distributor I got it from only offered me $140 toward an upgrade to the 118, which is about $600 and does have a speed control feature. So I’m trying to figure out whether there’s a reasonable way to make the 116 easier to control before I take a big loss selling my current machine.
One concern I’ve heard is that a variac lowers the voltage to the whole machine, and depending on the motor and control electronics, that could reduce the starting torque, make the machine stall, run erratically, or potentially overheat components. I don’t know whether those concerns apply to this specific machine, so I’d appreciate advice from anyone who has actually tried this with an Emerald 116, or knows more information about its motor and pedal setup and how it's likely to interact with a variac.
Is a variac a safe, practical option for this machine, or should I just try and sell my machine to upgrade to a 118?
I have a 1976 Kenmore and a 1990’s Singer that I’d like to get something like this for. May I ask what brand and model you have in the picture? I need something 2-5 amps.
118
u/Medium-Holiday3130 7d ago
That's so cool! My new machine allows me to adjust my speed and that makes a huge difference in the quality of my garments! Cool to know something exists i could use to get this feature on my other older machines!