Site map © Soft Byte Ltd 2012, 2024 Photos & screen shots are for illustrative purposes and may differ slightly from actual product.
Troubleshooting mispatterning with SilverLinks
SilverLinks 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
- Remove the carriage from the needle bed and look at the underside. At the front edge (the edge that is closer to you when you knit) there is a pair of magnets joined by a wire. These magnets must be able to slide freely backwards and forwards inside their plastic track. On an SK840 carriage this sliding distance is about 1 cm or 0.4 inches. If fluff or other debris accumulates in the tracks, this can stop the magnets sliding and prevent normal operation of the carriage. Make sure that there is nothing to stop the magnets sliding freely. If they can’t slide freely, the pattern will shift sideways in the direction of movement of the carriage.
- Clean the optical sensors near each back corner of the carriage. They detect the movement of the carriage along the rail that contains lots of holes. Also make sure that there is no fluff or other debris blocking any of the holes.
- Examine where the curl cord plugs into the SilverLink. You should be able to move it very slightly with a little finger pressure but it shouldn't be loose. If the socket is wobbly it will require re-soldering to the circuit board: return it for repair. Try to avoid repeatedly plugging and unplugging.
- The point cams must be securely clicked into place at the positions indicated in Interactive Knitting (but see the next point).
- After you have started knitting you may move inwards the point cam that is further from the carriage. Carriage movements can be minimized by keeping the point cams fairly close to the worked needles in this way. However, the point cam that is nearer the carriage must not be moved or the pattern will shift sideways. For SilverLinks 1, 2, and 5, the further point cam may also be moved outwards - outside the original cam position that was requested by DesignaKnit, provided that the number of stitches in the stitch pattern is less than or equal to the number of needles selected by the original position of the point cams.
- If the Silverlink works with one carriage and not with another, and the other carriage works with a different Silverlink, or an EC1, or a PC10, it may mean that the second carriage needs servicing: please see here for an explanation.
- How to prevent static electricity from causing mispatterning is decribed here.
- Any excess length of cable should not be tightly coiled but should be arranged loosely away from other cables, in order to avoid electromagnetic effects.
Problem description: the stitch pattern on the knitted work is not the same as the pattern on the interactive knitting screen.
SilverLinks 1 and 2 (discontinued products)
- The SilverLink 1 or 2 are not suitable for use with modern versions of Windows, which may temporarily take over the computer’s processor while you are trying to knit, with the result that DesignaKnit can lose track of which needle the carriage is over. The pattern can then shift sideways. (The SilverLink 4 and 5 have their own processor and memory that Windows cannot access and are therefore immune from this type of problem.)
- If a USB to serial converter is being used with a serial SilverLink 1 or 2, this is very likely to cause severe mispatterning and error messages about the carriage going in the wrong direction. The converter is not fast enough to keep up with the movement of the carriage at normal knitting speeds and should not be used with these links.
Using any Link - check for worn needle retaining bar
Random mispatterning can be caused by a worn needle retaining bar (or sponge bar). The type of mispatterning caused here is likely to be random stitches with the wrong needle selection rather than a sideways shift of the pattern.
To return to Cable Specific Points, click here.
The latest versions of the DesignaKnit cable link manuals are available here.