106
I want to thank each and everyone who have shared in this thread. The floppy is ordered, and a friend has offered up an old windows 98 computer. I hope I can get it to embroider.
106Welcome to Cute and I see you have some great information. I had the older Husqvarna Designer 1 with card reader and gave it to my daughter. It has the 3D dongle. We live in New South Wales, Australia.
Where do you live please?
The D programme is now up to 6 plus!!! Very expensive to upgrade, so I'm not going to at the moment. Love Chris, Newcastle, Australia.
by sewist1
edited 26 Sep 2016
Chris do you mean the Designer 11 or maybe the #1(Orchidea) The Designer1 came out with the floppy disk and then was upgradeable to USB.
Helen
by SewOften
26 Sep 2016
I am U.S.A ~ Ohio. I am remaining optimistic that I can get this machine to embroider. I found an external floppy drive on ebay, when it gets here......we'll find out if I can make it do what it was designed for.
by mops
26 Sep 2016
I did not upgrade my Designer 1 to USB, my daughter still uses it with floppies.
The computer that runs on Windows 98 might have an inbuilt floppy drive and 3D would work well on it.
by pennifold
26 Sep 2016
Yes, Helen I meant the Husqvarna 11 it was the one before the Designer 1 and had Quilter on it somewhere. I had solid cards with designs on it. My Designer 1 that I have now has the USB port in it and I LOVE IT! Love Chris
by sewist1
27 Sep 2016
Chris the Designer 1 was before the Designer 11. It was the star of the Brisbane Craft show in April 1999. I put a deposit down at the Show and paid some off it monthly. They were quite slow getting them into Australia the Dealers only received a few of them at a time and you were on a waiting list. I finally went to pick mine up on 5th October, 1999. On a receipt dated 21.7.99 the dealer wrote that they were starting to come through at last.
People who had bought the previous top of the line - the Orchidea in a certain time frame before the Designer 1 was released were able to trade-up and the complete cost of the Orchidea was deducted from the price of the D1. That was because they had not been told that the D1 was in the pipeline. love Helen
by sewist1
28 Sep 2016
I think the confusion is between the Quilt Designer 11 which didn't have embroidery and the Designer 2 which did have the embroidery capability. Strange they named two machines so similarly.
234253I don't have a clue, but I have faith in other to help you. Good luck! Kay
85867DO you have the dongle with the 3D software? Husqvarna has downloads to allow you to run the 3D on later versions of Windows :
by SewOften
26 Sep 2016
I do have the dongle, I found an external floppy drive....time will tell the tale!
2350Could be as simple as the floppy disk drive needing cleaning. I still have a D1 with a floppy drive. In the past when I have had the "general disk error" and still couldn't get it to read by jiggling the disk around a bit I use a floppy disk drive cleaner similar to these:
by SewOften
26 Sep 2016
Ok, I tried the in-and -out repeatedly trick, but it didn't work. Close examination revealed a pristine drive. It is clean as a whistle. Also cleaned the arm "plug". The fact that I get a message at all is a good indicator that it will work with the right hocus pocus. Anxiously awaiting arrival of the external floppy.
by sewist1
26 Sep 2016
The disk cavity might appear pristine as mine does but you can't tell if the "heads" need cleaning. The oxide coating on disks can leave a deposit on the heads. Here is one of many articles on maintenance of floppy disk drives.
http://www.tpub.com/neets/book23/...
The external floppy works with your computer not the machine. You still have the problem of getting the machine drive to read any floppy disks you write.
by sewist1
26 Sep 2016
You might be interested in this from lakeacres in July 2014:
"by lakeacres 15 Jul 2014
+6
Well we chose to purchase and run a floppy disk cleaner through my sewing machine and it seems to be working. Yippee. I will say that if I was to choose which new cheaper machine I would have purchased it would have been the Brother machine. But since the old one is now working and does a wonderful job at embroidery I think that I will stay with it for a while I am kind of bummed that I am not getting something new though. Oh well."
2350Yes!!!! Finally a forum where others understand my situation. The reviews were excellent for this machine, but I have never had these complexities when it comes to making something work. I have been trying to figure this out for a month by myself and wondered if it's going to be worth the aggravation to go so backward in technology. I am going to try the external hard drive. Thank you all for your wonderful and encouraging insight.
by crafter2243
25 Sep 2016
When I joined this group I knew nothing about machine embroidery. Since it was a used machine I had no support either. I can not tell you how much this group of people has helped me learn. Sometimes just reading the posts and you will learn. Never be afraid to ask, because we have all been there and no question is a stupid one.
Now go ahead and click on the green flower (on the right side) of all the answers you got and watch them turn orange. That is a way of thanking them by giving a flower
by airyfairy
26 Sep 2016
Angie, I was exactly the same. An aged second hand machine with no instructions. Cuties are the best
by SewOften
26 Sep 2016
OH Thank you!!! I love flowers for everyone!! This blog is the BEST. I have tried several others and got no response, I thought I made a huge mistake with this machine.
106My daughter now has my old Designer1 and she uses it frequently. With the 3D Pro software I also gave her and the original floppies ans some with my own designs. Software works well on an older computer that has Vista as its operating system.
I have no idea why your machine does not recognise the original diskettes that came with the machine ( 3 fonts and a collection of designs if I remember rightly). I know I sometimes had to take the floppy out and insert it again to have the machine recognise it as it did not always click right into place. But I guess you tried that.
I kept some floppies which I use on my Ruby, with the help of an external disk drive, which is slower than using a flash drive, but why copy them from the floppy to a flash drive when it works.
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
I am getting an external drive. This is quite a learning curve. Since the machine is responding to the floppy when it's inserted into the machine, I am hoping the drive works. It's good to have someone familiar to help. Thank you.
145191I see you have some answers...just wanted to welcome you to Cute...come back to this thread and let us know how you make out...or if you still need additional information...
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
Thanks for checking back. I am getting more insight, faster than I imagined!
313830The embroidery machine that I use is a D1. . To use the 3D embroidery you must have an old 32 bit computer that used the XP operating system with a floppy disk drive in the computer or an external floppy disk drive. .. . The software will not work on any of the new computers. Try loading the floppy again, and if that does not work unload it and try again. If your D1 will not recognize the floppy at all you will not be able to use it to do embroidery. .As mentioned by others an external floppy disk drive is not expensive. Gail
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
Thank you. This is sort of frustrating. If I have an external floppy drive, do I still need an old computer?
by crafter2243
25 Sep 2016
No you do not. The drive will be connected via the USB port. You just need to know how to move files
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
There are a lot of notes from the original owner about files. There is also a section dedicated to computer files. There are pictures of everything. I'll look and see if I can understand any of it before the external drive gets here. I am so excited to be able to talk about this!! Thank you!
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
P.S. This is quite a learning curve! I love the sound of the machine when it runs. I took a flashlight and looked into the floppy drive....it looks brand new. And the the threader, cutting button, fix button, and the ability to run a machine without a foot pedal are all great things to me.
1832Again Welcome to Cute
You should not have a large output of cash to get to use your machine. It may be more difficult to get floppy disks now a days. I am glad you received some answers and I hope you solve your problem.
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
They seem to be available on ebay. I will be thrilled if the disks that I have work and I can do some block embroidery. But so far, no luck.
109762That was my first Viking and convinced me that it was very user friendly. If you can find one,buy an external disc drive and you should be able to use it. I was trying to remember how it worked and may have some instructions but my sewing room is in a reorganization so I will keep my eyes open as I go through it. Viking is several years past supporting 3D but if you bought it with the machine you can still use it but you must have the dongle.
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
I bought the machine to do some light embroidery. It had to be tuned up to run, the throat place had to be replaced. The lights had to be replaced. and now I am trying the external drive. I can tell by the notebook/owners manual it was a well loved machine, but I don't know if it's gonna run the embroidery disks. I am grateful for this format, Thank you!
8227I had a Designer I years ago and when I traded it for the Designer SE my dealer bought me an external floppy drive so I could use all those floppies I had made for the Designer 1. Last time I looked you could get one online for $14 or less. Might be worth your while to check that out. Also had a friend that had her Designer 1 converted from floppy drive to USB port. That would probably cost more.
by SewOften
25 Sep 2016
Thanks for your insight. I am so glad to be able to talk to someone who knows what I'm dealing with. I am ordering an external drive. I have looked into upgrading the floppy to usb, but I have read reviews that say it slows down the machine when it embroiders.
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