Temperamental machine

[drewpd7]

My machine has a mind of it’s own.
It’ll work some days no problem. Other days it will decide to not do anything. You step on the pedal 2 or 3 times and nothing happens. Then the 4th time it works. A couple presses later stops again. It’s maddening.
Does anyone have a clue what’s going on? It’s not jammed. It’s clean. But it’s a old Kenmore and service costs would be more then it’s worth by a good amount. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks

[Efemera]

Sounds like the foot pedal... loose wire perhaps

[Lilian]

@drewpd7 I would check there is nothing loose in the pedal or around the pedal that could be preventing it from going down.

EDIT: is the pedal overheating?

[Greybird]

Could possibly be the other end - either there is a break inside the cable just before the plug that goes into the machine (usually a result of folding the cable) or there is a fault in the machine itself where the plug goes in.

[Mr Twingo]

There are a couple of things it could be.

• A wire broken inside the cable.
• A loose wire in the pedal.
• A failing rheostat in the pedal (the part that varies the voltage to the motor on older machines)
• A failing capacitor inside the pedal (newer machines).

All these can be tested without having to connect the cable to an electrical outlet, using a cheap digital multimeter (eBay, Amazon – something like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R39SQWH/)