If you own a Pro-Stitcher PLEASE keep the power adapter for the tablet close by!
I was contacted by a concerned longarmer – he was in the middle of a quilt and the “low battery” indicator had illuminated on his Pro-Stitcher tablet – and the power light showed the tablet was not charging. After going through the basics with the longarmer (all cords snug, lights illuminated on the power/usb hub, etc) it was clear there was a power issue on the feed to the tablet.
I asked the quilter if he had the power adapter that came with the tablet when the Pro-Stitcher was shipped (this particular Pro-Stitcher was about a decade old). He was not sure, but I informed him if he could find it he could use it temporarily to power/charge the table to enable the completion of the quilt.
An example of a power adapter is in Pic 1.
He tracked it down, and ingeniously figured out how to route the wires and attach to the machine bypassing the Pro-Stitcher wiring and allowing the quilt to be completed. If you have the power adapter and the Pro-Stitcher power connection to the tablet fails, you can either route the power adapter cable to the tablet like this longarmer did, or simply plug it in to the adapter and charge the battery when the Pro-Stitcher is not in use. Unless the battery is old/weak, the tablet will run several hours without a recharge.
In the past year or so I have encountered this issue several times – most tied to a loose cable but I have replaced two failed power/usb hubs on the rear of the Pro-Stitcher tablet cradle (aka black box). In this particular case the culprit turned out to be a failed power cable (Pic 2) that connects the power/usb hub to the tablet.
This was determined by getting out the trusty voltmeter, confirming power was leaving the machine to feed the power/usb hub (Pic 3), and then confirming 12 volts DC leaving the power port on the hub (voltage for this particular tablet – may vary based on model – Pic 4), but not making it consistently to the power pin connecting to the tablet (if the wire was wiggled power would intermittently connect to the tablet but one of the wires inside the power cable was broken and would only make contact with the “wiggle” pushed the two broken conductor sections together.
As a double check I used the “tone” function on the Ohms setting to verify which conductor was broken – the ground conductor was good – solid tone. The power conductor was the one that was broken – the connectivity tone would only beep briefly when the cord was wiggled into a position that would allow the conductors to make brief contact.
The customer called the manufacturer and ordered a new power cable, ~$25 for purchase and shipping, and in the meantime, he can continue quilting with the tablet power adapter.
If you have a Pro-Stitcher, please keep the power adapter for your tablet handy – if can keep you quilting when a cable or hub fails.
Quilt on!
Do you have questions on this topic or a suggestion for another one you are interested in?