Locked Hopping Foot
Ouch! That made a mark… and a locked-down hopping foot which disabled the longarm. Check all the quilt seams before firing up the longarm.
Torn quilt
Got a longarm-911 call yesterday from one of my clients - her Avante with Pro-Stitcher had hung up in a poorly-sewn seam, broke the needle, buried the hopping foot inside the quilt sandwich (she had to literally cut the quilt open to get the foot out), and the hopping foot had jammed in the down position so the machine could not be operated. The Quilter was also concerned timing may have been affected due to the broken needle.
The good news was luckily timing was not affected, but the bad news was there was no way to repair the locked-down hopping foot without opening up the machine - and there could be something broken or bent inside that would require ordering and waiting on parts.
After a few minutes to get inside the machine (the older Avante's are a real "joy" to prepare for opening as there are numerous cable connections and a power supply that have to be removed first) it was easy to see what was wrong - in the extra force created when the foot had hung while the Pro-Stitcher continued to try to move the machine the hopping foot lever had come off the cam it was supposed to be riding on (red arrow) and had jammed in the "up" position (yellow circle) which pushed the hopping into the jammed "down" position. I reset the lever on the cam, cycled the machine several times by hand while looking and feeling for anything else loose, bent or otherwise not damaged, closed the machine back up, and the Quilter was back in business.
This particular quilt had been pieced by a relatively new quilter, but any quilt top could have a un-sewn or poorly-sewn seam that could cause the foot to hang. Two tactics to minimize the risk of a problem like this happening are 1: carefully inspect all the seams row-by-row as you advance the quilt and either repair or avoid any problem areas, and 2: use a Glide Foot or similar to better enable the machine to move the foot over problematic areas of the quilt - particularly when using a computerized system.
Do you have questions on this topic or a suggestion for another one you are interested in?