Long Arm Drama

Yesterday, I thought I was going to lose it! I went to warm up my longarm machine and, when I touched it, got a shock. After that, the machine would run, but the stitch regulator would not. I depend on the stitch regulator to give me those nice, even stitches, so I panicked. All I could think was that the Intellistitch unit got zapped by the static shock and I was going to have to box up the machine and send it back to Nolting for repairs, losing the use of it for weeks. Ed was an aircraft electrician in the Navy and he started troubleshooting in the hope of finding a quick and easy fix. We found that the stitch regulator worked forward and aft, but not left and right. There are two optical encoders on the carriage - one detects forward and back movement and the other senses left and right movement of the sewing head. Nothing was visibly wrong with either encoder, but Ed noticed that both were the same part number and swapped them to see if the problem would move with the encoder. When we next tried the machine, the stitch was regulated left and right, but not forward and back. The static shock had burned out one of the optical encoders, and not the Intellistitch "brain"! According to the U.S. Digital website, the optical encoders are still available and Ed can replace it right on the frame, so I plan to order TWO (one for a spare) tomorrow and should be back up and running by the end of the week.
In the meantime, I tried quilting a few small items without stitch regulation. The first, I just did an all-over meander and, to my surprise, it came out quite good. The next, I tried some more complicated loops, and that one came out pretty good, too. I still miss the stitch regulator and want it back as soon as possible, but I learned that it really is possible to quilt without it.
Prior to all the drama I was finishing up the bindings on a couple of spring table runners, here is a picture of one of them. I don’t know the name of the pattern but the sides remind me of chevrons.