I mentioned a while back that I'd finally gotten the dealer who handled the sale of my long arm to order the dampening plates for me. Juki is notorious for not having parts available in a timely fashion. I figured it would take a while, but surprisingly the entire process of initial contact to delivery was within two weeks! The man I worked with this time at the dealer was fantastic to work with.
Even though these parts now come standard on the machines, they are considered an upgrade to older (1-5 year old machines). On the Juki owners Facebook group I belong to, some people were able to get the part at no cost while others were quoted upwards of $700!!! The average seemed to run around $200. While I still feel Juki should have provided these at no charge--at the time I initially inquired my machine was one year old; search Juki in the search bar for the back story--I felt that if $200 was what it took to make it run better, it would be worth it. I ended up being charged $140, which was $125 for the parts and $15 for shipping (a great deal since the dealer is five hours away!).
So we got the parts and they sat for a week or two before I convinced my husband to install them for me. The directions that came with the parts are not very good, again typical Juki. In fact, the original equipment parts shown on the diagram are nothing like what was on my machine. I took step-by-step photos in case anyone else out there runs into this issue.
Here's what comes in the box. By the way, you need to know which version of the machine you have in order to get the right pieces. Mine has a green on/off switch and is version 2.
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| The directions |
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| The new plate |
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| The hardware--the four rubber dampeners, some nuts and washers |
Here is a step-by-step process of what we did.
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| Remove the dead bar. |
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Remove the top bar. This one takes a little more time since you
have to remove the handle wheel first. |
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Gently lift the machine off the tracks and lay it on its side.
We laid ours on several layers of fleece for cushioning. |
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Carefully remove the encoder since you will
need to reattach it to the new pieces. |
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| Take the two bars off. |
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Remove the plate that was closer to the front of the machine.
Remove the larger plate from the back. |
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This photo show the new locations of the plates. Note that you will
have to rotate the larger back one so that the holes line up.
Don't attach them just yet. |
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| Add the rubber dampeners. |
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| Tighten down the jam nuts. |
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| Reattach the large plate to the bottom of the machine as shown. |
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| Closer view. |
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| Attach the rubber dampeners to the front plate, then reattach as shown. |
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| Attach the new plate to the bottom of the machine as directed. |
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| Detail shot of reattachment. |
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| Reattach the encoder. |
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| Carefully place your machine back onto the rails and reattach all the cables. |
I have not yet had time to try quilting with the new setup. I can say that the machine feels wobbly on the tracks now. I imagine this is by design, to help absorb all the vibrations. I will update once I have a chance to try it out.
Update 10/11/17: The dampener plate is great! I stitched out a pantograph and the laser did not bobble from the line anywhere except for in the points. The points looked fantastic on the quilting. I did notice that the stitch length seemed a bit longer than it has in the past on that particular setting. No big deal, just bump up the stitches per inch a bit. I also worked from the front and did not notice any big change. The only issue I have remaining is that the white box where everything plugs in is still really loose and the power cord still loses connectivity.
