Electronic knitting machine — Silver Reed SK 840

Electronic knitting machine with its own computer running DesignaKnit 7 for knitting patterns.

Silver Reed SK 840

Silver Reed SK 840




Location

Textile room

Access

Free use, first come first served, no logging

Yarn

Available; thinner, less hairy yarns work best

Manual

Swedish manual in the drawer under the machine

Owner

Stockholm Makerspace

Help

Slack #textilrummet

Casting on (plain knitting)

  1. The yarn must unwind with zero resistance — if it's in a ball, wind it onto a cone with the winder first.

  2. Thread the machine (video).

  3. Cam selector to O (stockinette).

  4. Tension dial to 9 as a start (scale 0–10).

  5. Both Russel levers to II.

  6. Both weaving levers to ◯.

  7. Put all needles across your knitting width in position D.

  8. Carriage closed (flat): run it back and forth, ending on the right. Needles are now in B.

  9. Bring every other needle in the knitting area to D.

  10. Pull the yarn forward, move the lever on the yarn slot aside, place the yarn in position ①, close the lever.

  11. Draw the yarn under the carriage to the left, over the protruding hooks.

  12. Hold the yarn end slightly taut and pull the carriage left — slowly but firmly.

  13. If it looks right, go back and forth 4–8 times.

  14. Both weaving levers to ⩫.

  15. Hang weights along the bottom, especially at the ends.

  16. Check the back is smooth — no lower threads caught on needles. If there are, carefully snip them.

  17. Keep knitting; move the weights up every 4–6 rows.

Knitting a pattern from the computer

Prepare the pattern:

  1. About 2 pixels per cm of knitting — design accordingly.

  2. Save as PNG on a USB stick, plug it into the knitting computer.

  3. DesignaKnit: File → Open stitch pattern → Graphics files (JPEG, TIF, GIF, PCX, PNG, BMP).

  4. Choose 2-colour pattern.

  5. Pattern → Convert background and pattern colour. Click the background colour (gets a cross; becomes colour 1).

  6. Save.

Knit it:

  1. New knitting, choose your saved pattern under stitch patterns.

  2. Choose the size (numbers in brackets = pattern size; larger repeats it). The patterned area is set by the pattern selectors (white magnets with red lines).

  3. Cast on as above, centred on 0 on the machine's scale, matching the size.

  4. Stop on the right when ready to start the pattern.

  5. Cam selector to F (Fair Isle).

  6. Place the pattern selectors where the pattern starts and ends.

  7. Reset the row counter and make sure it's active.

  8. Interface box (black) powered and connected to the computer and, with the spiral cable, to the machine.

  9. Press the green traffic light, OK, and upload the pattern.

  10. Pattern yarn (colour 2) in position ② (in front of the lever, looser than ①).

  11. Hold the pattern yarn straight down and pull the carriage left, slowly but firmly.

  12. Keep knitting; move the weights up as you go.

Documents and links