I've had my Brother SE 350 for about 4 years now (the precursor to the Brother SE 400). It's sick! Whenever I have a needle and thread in there, it seizes up, the needle comes up above the plate but not all the way up, it makes a funny noise, and then my machine beeps and says "safety switch activated." Anyone have any idea what's wrong?
I've tried cleaning the machine, a needle, and new fabric. If I don't have the needle in, everything works fine (well, it of course doesn't sew without the needle, but i can press the foot pedal for a while and the machine doesn't make any funny noises). When the machine stops working, the thread has caught the fabric enough that I can't pull the fabric out, but not enough that there's a birds nest under the plate.