I've inherited a Bernina Activa 140 and can't work out how to get the machine to stop in the needle down position. Is this possible?

SOURCE: needle always stops in up position

I have the Activa 131 and while the needle is made to stop in the up position, all you have to do is push the bottom of the peddle quickly with your heel and the needle goes into the material and stays until you start sewing again. Hope this is helpful.

Kelley Buchanan

• 130 Answers
• Posted on Apr 30, 2009

SOURCE: user manual download bernina activa 140 sewing machine

Try this... www.2instructions.com

SOURCE: On other Berninas you are

If you don't see a button that you can select for needle up / down, then you can't. Your foot control might might have a symbol at the lower side that shows and up / down arrow. If so you can tap the bottom edge of the foot control and the machine will half cycle, stopping with the needle in the down position.

SOURCE: I have a Bernina Activa Patchwork Edition 140.

feed dogs button will not pop out so it is flush with the machine

SOURCE: Bernina Activa 130 I was sewing

You can check whether the alignment/timing has been affected fairly simply, as follows: Put a new needle in. Adjust the position of the needle fully to the left and try a straight sew-off ... if this works OK, but not when the needle is at centre, the timing is probably out. Drop the bobbin door and take the bobbin/bobbin case out. Turn the handwheel until the needle goes down into the stitch plate and just starts to come back up ... stop there. Carefully push the needle/needle-bar all the way to the right, so that the needle is nearly against the right-hand side of the slot in the stitch-plate. Lean the machine slightly back so that you can see clearly into the hook/shuttle area through the bobbin door. Release the hook/shuttle retainer by pressing the metal lever to the top-left side of the bobbin door. The black plastic hook/shuttle retainer should pop-open and you can carefully drop it down on its hinge to rest on the bobbin door. You can now see the hook/shuttle in its hook race and the pointed part of the hook should be to the left of the needle. Now, slowly rotate the handwheel so that the point of the hook continues to rotate clockwise until it just passes behind the needle. Look very carefully - the point of the hook/shuttle should be just above the top of the thread hole in the needle .... if it's below, or significantly above, the timing on your machine has been thrown-out by the needle breakage and will have to be professionally adjusted.