How I finally got slow speed control from my foot pedal - steps that actually worked

I did the same sort of fiddling on mine last year when my old Janome started stitching like a light switch, either stopped or flat out. The trimmer was already fitted on mine but had been left near one end of its range, prolly from the factory, so turning it a quarter turn at a time made a big difference straight away. Took maybe three or four rounds of press, lift the foot, adjust, repeat before the slow end felt usable.

One thing I found though, the trimmer only got me so far. My twitchiness was partly a worn carbon track on the slider, years of dust and fluff from the sewing room had got inside. A blast of contact cleaner into the slot where the wiper sits and working the pedal a few dozen times sorted out the scratchy dead spots the dial coud not fix.

So if anyone turns the dial and still gets jumpy spots halfway down the travel, look at the track itself before assuming the adjustment is wrong. Mine is fine now, though I still keep a scrap of fabric under the needle when I test, just in case it lunges.

I was looking at the posts and I noticed something else about the pedal when mine was acting up. Before I started messing with the tiny parts, it made this really wierd grating sound whenever I pressed it down. Now that I've adjusted it a bit, the noise is much quieter. Does that kind of clicking or squeaking sound usually mean the resistance is all wrong?

I noticed when I adjusted mine, the intermittent clicking lessened, but the overall resistance still felt inconsistent across the entire range, which leads me to wonder if the physical spring tension is somehow uneven rather than purely a contact issue. Have you ever attempted to gently apply pressure to the slider assembly itself while performing the electrical adjustments, simply to determine if there is any mechanical binding happening in the movement? I often suspect these lower quality mechanisms may utilize a specific compression spring that naturally loses its functional tension over extensive periods of use.