Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

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fauneral
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:40 pm

Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by fauneral »

I have been researching and researching this, to no avail.

I have used Mac, and Windows, trying everything from the instructions from Ladyada to Knittington to img2track (which is where I seem to have gotten the furthest).

My issue is with communication between my computer and the knitting machine. With img2track, I am able to get the computer in the knitting machine to seemingly recognize that there is SOMEthing connected to it, as instead of receiving an error message when I press 551, (M), It actually beeps and the pattern No. LED comes on. But it will not allow me to type in "901", and if I type in 1, (M), all lights except the one under the row counter go off and, no matter how long (i've left it up for up to 45 minutes), nothing changes.

I keep reading that the file format from the 930 to the 940 is different, and there is even less information about the 950 available. Some sources say they're un-hackable, since they don't have the option for PPD, and some others seem to have built-in options for the 950, which I can't seem to get to work. and some I have installed a variety of different programs, including SDK's and libraries I had no prior need for.. This hasn't been easy thus far, and I feel that without help I will have wasted all the money I've spent on this machine.

I am willing to save and send logs, and any info, to anyone willing to help. I have mac and windows both available to me, although I would prefer to use the mac if possible (the other is a desktop, and it is far from my to-the-wall knitting table set-up, in another room.)

I have been wondering about the wiring of the floppy output, whether or not it varies from the earlier machines, as well as whether or not the instructions I followed to fashion it in the first place are correct for my machine. I used DaviWorks' instructions, instead of Ladyada's, since I don't have my soldering iron with me here.

Please, any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

mister.michael.hall(at)gmail(dot)com

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bekathwia
 
Posts: 215
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 1:18 am

Re: Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by bekathwia »

We only have experience with the 930, not any other machine. The knitting machine hack is not a supported Adafruit project-- I recommend you check out the kminternals group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kminternals for other folks with the 950 machine.

fauneral
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2013 1:40 pm

Re: Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by fauneral »

Sadly, I've tried to join that group, but no one seems to be active in it any longer, and you can't view it unless you are a member, so I'm just stuck. Might have to end up selling it.

chixor
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2013 6:16 pm

Re: Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by chixor »

Don't lose heart, fauneral! We've been working on this at LondonHackspace. We have a 950i at the space and a couple of our members also have 950i's. We've successfully used a modified version of this python script many times (thank you Becky Stern!).

Have a read of what we've been up to at our hackspace wiki under Equipment > Knitting Machine (for some odd reason this forum classifies the L part of our name as a banned spam word so I can't link it!

You're always welcome to pop by and have a chat to one of us knitters. Let us know how you go :)

SusannaCarolina
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon May 26, 2014 6:43 pm

Re: Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by SusannaCarolina »

Hi there, I just wanted to say that I have a 950 i and for 3 years I've been using the knittington interface (on a PC) and the hack worked fine and I hardly ever had problems with getting the machine and computer to communicate and load patterns.

My cable seemed to have broken after the soldered wires came loose and so my friend has re made me one which in the exact same way as the first cable, the interface recognises communication between the machine and laptop yet now I only get error messages on the knitting machine when I try to load a pattern to it and I cannot understand why.

I hope you have managed to solve your problem and are still able to use a 950i because it's a great machine! If you think you have any information that may help me with my situation I would love to hear from you! I am struggling!!

CristinaM
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:00 am

Re: Brother KH-950 Knitting Machine Hack

Post by CristinaM »

Hello,

I have a Brother 950 and I want to ask you how do you hack it? This type of machine doesn't have a port to connect them to computer. I want to much ti be able to do this, any information would be really appreciated. Thank you

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