Ghost Sewing

I was sitting at my Janome MC 6600 the other day and it started sewing on its own! My feet were flat on the floor, no where near the foot control. What the?? My machine is nearly seven years old, was this the beginning of serious electrical problems?

So I Googled "Janome sews on its own" and found a forum that talks about this. Not everyone has experienced it and many service tech can't reproduce the problem in order to fix it, so it's something of a mystery.

It turns out the electrical connection is extra sensitive to dust and lint. The debris closes the circuit and the machine sews on its own! When I first read about it I used canned air to blow out the space around the base of the control, there was a surprising amount of dust! It helped for a few days but then the problem came back. I was standing at the ironing board with my back to the machine when it started sewing! The only way to make it stop is to turn it off. Hubby and I took the foot control apart and cleaned it. Man was it ever linty! There were long human hairs, dust and thread. We wiped the contact with a cotton swab moistened with rubbing alcohol, wiped away the dust and thread and put it back together. Works like a charm.