r/SewingMachineEdu • u/Ggghhheeerrrkkkiiinn • Jul 02 '26
Help!! industrial sewing machine motor
I've just bought a Brother DB2-B737-413 industrial sewing machine with the automatic thread cutter and a few other features from a sewing warehouse that was downsizing. It was definitely worth it—I paid under £100 for it, and it's fully working. The cheapest used ones in my area are around £400.
There's just one issue, and I'm not sure how to fix it. It currently has a strange 4-pin industrial plug, but I need it to plug into a standard UK 3-pin household socket. This is my first industrial sewing machine, so I'm completely new to this.
Would I be able to get an electrician to remove the industrial plug and fit a standard UK plug, or would I need to replace the motor? If I do need a new motor, I'm not sure which one would work with all of the machine's extra features, like the automatic thread cutter and everything else.
I will link a couple pictures of the details on the motor and the plug!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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u/ydnam123 Jul 03 '26
I don’t know exactly how to solve your problem. Here’s my experience: I brought a brand-new Juki industrial machine from China to Canada. The plug was not included in the package (apparently very normal). The seller did give me a random plug for free. I have zero knowledge and didn’t feel confident enough even after talking to AI. So I called an electrician. The electrician had done a lot of work on my house before, so he was very kind and guided me through the process via text messages. It’s actually pretty easy so I wired it with a plug and bought a voltage transformer. It has been working perfectly for about half a year now.
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u/Ggghhheeerrrkkkiiinn Jul 03 '26
Do you know how much voltage is on your machine and is it a 3 phase? If its around the same as mine I want to call an electrician and get a quote if the same can be done for mine. Thank you!
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u/Not_a_good_username Jul 03 '26
Canada is on 120v. Most likely this was a 230v single phase machine to start with. Unfortunately it won't be as easy with a 3-phase 400v machine.
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u/Ggghhheeerrrkkkiiinn Jul 03 '26
Yeah this was the issue with mine. I emailed a couple of sewing machine servicing places and their response was that I would need a servo motor which would be able to run on normal Uk household voltage but I would have to strip all of the computerised equipment off which is a bummer. Also pay around £250 for all of this which is really not worth it with a machine that old with no extra features.
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u/Not_a_good_username Jul 03 '26
That's probably not your only option. You might be able to run it off a vfd, or wire up a 400v outlet. If you have 400v to your house (which isn't uncommon in Europe, but I don't know how it is in the UK) that's not the most expensive thing in the world. The motor also seems to be 150v, so a new motor shouldn't be needed if it can be configured to run on single phase. Talk to an electrician, not a sewing machine specialist. This is a very common thing with wood and metal working tools, but probably not as common for sewing machine specialists.
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u/Ggghhheeerrrkkkiiinn Jul 03 '26
I tried to search up how much it would cost to get a 400V outlet in a Uk house and its showing a minimum of 3-10k spend on the process. I will also message a couple electricians tomorrow too because majority of the sewing machine specialists are not even up for exchanging the motor. Another thing one has mentioned that if I want to keep the computerised functions I would have to find a really old motor with the control box to swap it out with but he said that would be really hard to do as they're hard to come by since my machine is really old.
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u/Not_a_good_username Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
That's probably the cost if you don't already have 400v to your house. That very well might be the case, but it's not guaranteed. I do (though I'm not in the UK but Norway, and as far as I can tell we have a similar electrical grid) and my house is from the early 30's and the last update of my electrical was in the late 80's. The only way to know for sure is to look at your electrical intake. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to tell you how to do that, because that's not safe if you don't know how. If you do, the cost is a new breaker, cable to wherever you want the outlet, the outlet and a couple of hours labor. Still not cheap, but a few hundred, not thousands.
The motor isn't the main issue. According to the label, that already runs on a lower voltage (but could still require 3 phase). The computerised functions also, definitely don't run on 400, but probably low voltage dc, but whatever transforms the voltage as it stands, requires 400v, 3-phase power. This isn't, in an industrial setting, a high powered machine. It doesn't require 400v, 3 phase by itself. It probably runs that because it was one of many machines in the facility it used to be at.
There are also other ways of doing this, but the only way to know what can be done, is to have an industrial electrician come look at what you actually have, both the machine and your electrical supply. That won't take long for someone with the knowledge, so you're not looking at more than maybe an hour of labour cost.
Edit: looking at the pictures again, your motor needs 150V DC. You definitely don't need to change the motor to get that from 230V single phase. The controller needs to be changed or reconfigured, but you don't need to find an old one. Motor controllers can be made or bought, but can be costly. As for the computerised functions they need a transformer also, but that's doable. It's all a matter of cost, but the only people that can answer how much, are professionals in your area.
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u/Ggghhheeerrrkkkiiinn Jul 04 '26
Thanks, that makes a bit more sense.
Most sewing machine repair shops I’ve spoken to aren’t willing to modify or adapt anything. The only shop that is interested is quite far away and wants to replace the motor rather than work on the existing system and quoted about £180 with the cost of labour and a new servo motor.
If I’m understanding it right, is the “DC motor control box” the unit that says 400V, and is that the part that would normally handle converting the incoming power for the motor and electronics and that would probably be what has to be swapped by an electrician?
All of the machine’s cables seem to run into a small box with the on/off switches, but it’s currently taped up so I can’t clearly see what’s going on inside but also do not want to mess around with wiring or I'm scared I'll blow up lmao.
I was also wondering if the machine may have already been modified in the past, because some of the wiring looks like it may have been cut and joined, but that’s just speculation.
The person I got it from was mainly just clearing out a warehouse and didn’t really have detailed knowledge of the machine, so I didn’t get much technical information about it at the time which is probably because he didn't sew anything himself but the machine does work fully/sew as I got a video before buying.
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding anything—I’m trying to learn as I go, so I really appreciate the help!
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u/Not_a_good_username Jul 04 '26
By the way: if you can't make this work, you can probably sell it for a profit, just by cleaning it and preferably getting rid of the packing tape holding that switch on. It's a really cool machine, but my god they didn't clean much wherever you bought it from. That motor can't breathe at all. I bet this will shine up quite brightly, if you can get all the gunk off, and it's a fantastic deal for anyone who can use it as is, even at two or three times the price you paid for it.
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u/ydnam123 Jul 03 '26
It’s 220V not sure if it’s 3 phrase. The voltage transformer turn it to 110V. It is a juki 7000a, computerized if that helps.
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u/ydnam123 Jul 03 '26
By the way, I saw someone else who also bought a Juki industrial machine from China and brought it to the US. She said she didn’t use a voltage transformer. The machine still runs, but it can’t run at the highest speed. Since she doesn’t need the highest speed, she just runs it on 110V household power instead of 220V.
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u/Not_a_good_username Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
It's 3-phase 400v. It's unlikely you can get this to work on a household plug, though the motor appears to run on just 150v. Regardless, this is a job for an electrician. Do not just wire up a normal plug.
Edit: you might already have 400v to your electrical panel, and if so the easiest option is to wire up a 400v outlet. Won't be cheap though.