Understanding the Needle Button on the SWF Control Panel

In this video, we explain how the needle button on the SWF control panel is used to assign the needle sequence for the colors in a design. On the display, the numbers and letters shown under needle select represent the colors in the order they will sew. Because the machine only displays one character per needle, needles 1 through 9 appear as 1 through 9, while needles 10 through 15 appear as A through F. In the upper right corner, the number to the right of the slash shows the total number of colors in the design, while the number to the left shows the current color position the machine is looking for.

We then enter the needle assignments in order using the keypad. If the machine is looking for the first color and that color is on needle 3, we enter 3. The position indicator then advances to the next color. For needles 10 through 15, we press and hold the plus 10 button and then tap the second digit, so needle 15 is entered as F. We continue entering each color in sequence until all colors have been assigned, then press the set button once to move the cursor to the bottom line.

At that point, we can choose to save, insert, or delete. If the cursor is on end and we press set, the machine accepts the entries. If we move to insert and press set, the machine places a placeholder to the left of the current cursor position so we can enter a missing needle number, then return to end and press set again to save. To delete a color, we move the cursor to the needle entry to remove, press set, move to delete, and press set again. If we make a mistake while entering values, we can use the up and down buttons to reposition the cursor and type over the entry.

We also point out an important applique setting. If applique is set to yes and the same needle is entered twice in a row, the machine stops between those two color changes and displays a color change stop message until we press start. If that stop is not desired, we need to set the applique function to no. The most important final step is to press set, move to end, and press set again so the new needle values are locked in.