As a precaution and in case it may have contributed to the issues I had with the various light rings on my Handi Quilter Sweet Sixteen, my dealer swapped out the circuit board in my machine when I took it up to her on the weekend (the board was swapped out on 11 May 2013). I also got the new light ring (Handi Quilter now has a new supplier and, as a bonus, brighter lights!).
Because I thought that swapping out the board and replacing it with a new one might mean that all my stitch counts would likely be reset to zero, I took a photo of my total stitches prior to the replacement board being put in.
In the two years I’ve had my Sweet Sixteen, I had done some 8.53 million stitches! If you look at the leading zeros, you can see that the board on the machine can tally up to 999,999,999 stitches. Whether the machine itself would last that long is something to be confirmed at a much later date 😉
Now, if you looked at the stitch count only, my machine appears to be brand new as the new board had just 249 stitches recorded on it, which I’d guess was done as part of the manufacturers’ testing.
I wonder how long it will take me to reach another 8.5 million stitches…
Update August 2014: I got the new software upgrade (C-pod replacement) and the stitch count since this post (May 2013) was 6.2 million stitches, for a total to August 2014 of approximately 14.7 million stitches.
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 
I love the “new” light ring!! But I am really hoping that the board ‘issue’ isn’t in my future, too! How was that problem diagnosed???? Did you have certain indicators that your dealer knew of?? I just want to be aware of the possibilities…….yours is far from the first that I am aware of that has had this particular problem resulting in a new board. I haven’t checked my total stitches but will do so later today. Hugs……..
The circuit board ‘problem’ was never diagnosed. It’s likely there was nothing wrong with the circuit board. However, after swapping out several light rings, and then the connector wires, the advice of the HQ technicians in Australia to my dealer (not to me, so all this info is third-hand) was to try swapping out the circuit board next time it happened.
Meantime, the new light rings came out. But my dealer decided to swap out the circuit board too, just in case there was an issue with it. As I said, there was nothing wrong with it that anyone knew about — it was just another step in trying to solve the problem.
My dealer also suggested that I put a surge protector between my machine and the power outlet, just in case (again, not proved) fluctuations in power might be a contributing factor. I’ve now done that.
That is very interesting. You know that I am on my 3rd light ring (now the new model) and I have had a surge protector in place from the beginning. I will be very interested to follow this. My dealer had the light ring on her Fusion go out, also, and the replacement was the new one. Hope this solves the problem(s). Hugs, D
[…] for my own records… My previous C-pod (motherboard) had 6.2 million stitches on it, and the one before that had 8.5 million stitches, so I’ve done 14.7 million stitches on my machine so far. As the C-pod is totally replaced […]