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Setting up, the manual, and the three things that most often go wrong. If none of this helps, write to us. A real person answers.

Setting up

  1. 1

    Plug the dongle into your machine

    • Use the USB socket your memory stick normally uses.
    • The little screen lights up when the dongle has power.
  2. 2

    Join it to your wireless network

    • The screen shows an amber page with a square code.
    • Scan the code with the camera on your telephone.
    • Your telephone joins the dongle's own network, and the setup page opens by itself.
    • Choose your network from the list and give the password.
    • The dongle joins your network and restarts.
  3. 3

    Finish the short questionnaire

    • Open the address the screen shows. On most networks that is http://ss.local
    • Give the dongle a name, choose your machine, choose the format you prefer, and set your time zone.
    • The machine you choose here decides where designs are filed. Choose carefully.
  4. 4

    Send your first design

    • Open the Designs page.
    • Drag a design file onto the page, or select Browse files.
    • Wait for the name to appear in the list. The dongle reads the file back and checks it.
    • On the machine, open the design list again. The new design is there.

When something is wrong

The machine says there are no files

This is almost always the folder, and it is not your fault. Many machines read designs from one folder only and ignore the rest of the drive. They do not report that as an error. They report it as an empty list.

Open Designs on the dongle and check the design is listed. If it is not there, upload it again.

Open Setup and check the machine setting. The machine setting decides which folder the dongle files designs into. A wrong machine here points the dongle at the wrong folder, and everything else looks normal.

On the machine, leave the design list and open it again.

A design is on the dongle but not on the machine's panel

The usual cause is the file name.

Embroidery machine panels read short capitalised names only. A longer name is stored a different way, and these panels skip it. So is a name with spaces in it. So is a name in lower case. The design is on the storage. The panel will not show it.

The dongle already handles this. Every design gets a short name for the machine, and your full name is kept for the web page. That is why the two lists can look different, and that is correct.

If a design is still missing, restart the dongle. On start-up it renames any design that a machine could not see.

The machine will not read the drive at all

Check the size of the storage. Many machines refuse a drive larger than two gigabytes. They do not refuse it politely. They fail to read it and give no reason.

Check the storage is formatted FAT32, not exFAT.

The dongle can prepare the storage for you with the right settings for your machine. This erases every design on it, so save your designs somewhere else first.

What the light on the dongle means

Slow green and blue breath. Ready, and the machine can read the storage.

Yellow to purple sweep. A file is moving, so do not remove power.

Red flash. The machine cannot read the storage. Look at the dongle screen for the reason.

This page cannot reach the dongle

Check the dongle has power. The screen is lit when it has power.

Check your telephone or computer is on the same network as the dongle.

Open the address the dongle screen shows. The screen shows its address in turn with its name. Use the address if the name does not open.

Some networks stop devices finding each other by name. The address always works.

Moving the dongle to another network

There are two ways, and both end on the amber setup screen.

From the web page: open Setup, then Advanced, then select Forget Wi-Fi and run setup. This keeps the name, the machine and the time zone. Only the network is erased.

On the dongle: hold the button. After 1.5 seconds a red card appears. Keep holding. At six seconds the dongle erases its settings and restarts into first-time setup. Let go before six seconds to cancel.

Holding the button erases the name, the machine, the time zone and the network. Your designs stay on the storage.

Starting again from the beginning

Holding the button on the dongle for six seconds is the factory restore. It returns the dongle to first-time setup.

It does not erase your designs.

Use it when the dongle goes to a new owner. Use it when the dongle moves to a new network and you cannot reach the page. Use it when setup went wrong and you want a clean start.

Every screen message

These are all of the messages the dongle can put on its screen. Each one is shown here exactly as the screen shows it, so you can match the words in front of you. The screen fits 26 characters to a line, which is why they are short.

Clears itself. Nothing is broken.

Your embroidery machine was reading the storage at the moment the dongle tried to write. The machine always wins that contest, by design, so that it never loses a design part way through reading one.

What to do

  1. Wait a moment and send the design again.
  2. If the machine is part way through a design list, leave that list and try once more.
  3. This message clears itself. It does not mean anything is broken.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

Less than one megabyte is free. The dongle measured the free space while it still had the storage, so this is a real reading and not a guess.

What to do

  1. Open the Designs page.
  2. Delete a design you no longer need.
  3. Send the new design again.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

The write failed, and the storage was not full. This is the general case, so the dongle says the true thing rather than guessing at a cause.

What to do

  1. Send the design again.
  2. If it fails twice, restart the dongle and send it once more.
  3. If it still fails, the storage may need setting up again. Save your designs somewhere else first.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

The dongle wrote the design, read it back, and the bytes did not match. It tells you rather than letting your machine find out.

What to do

  1. Send the design again.
  2. If the same design fails twice, try a different copy of the file.
  3. Tell us if a design fails this check repeatedly. That is worth knowing about.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

A design already on the storage could not be read back. The dongle checks the designs it is holding, not only the one you just sent.

What to do

  1. Open the Designs page. The design that failed is named there.
  2. Delete it and send it again.
  3. If several designs fail at once, set up the storage again. Save your designs somewhere else first.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

The dongle found no usable card at start-up. Either the slot is empty, the card is not seated, or the card did not answer.

What to do

  1. Turn the dongle off and check the card is pushed in until it clicks.
  2. Turn it back on.
  3. If the message stays, try a different card. FAT32, and two gigabytes or less for many machines.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

The card is there and the dongle can talk to it, but the volume is not in a state your machine can read. A card formatted as exFAT gives this message.

What to do

  1. Save any designs on the card somewhere else. The next step erases them.
  2. Open the setup page and select Set up the storage.
  3. Wait for it to finish. The dongle screen and the page both report progress.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

The dongle could not present itself to your machine as a memory stick. Your machine will see nothing at all until this clears.

What to do

  1. Unplug the dongle from the machine and plug it back in.
  2. If your machine has a power switch, turn the machine off and on as well.
  3. If it happens every time, tell us. Include the boot report.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

A start-up check failed that does not have a message of its own. The boot report names which one.

What to do

  1. Open Setup, then Advanced, then the boot report.
  2. Find the line marked as failed.
  3. Send us that line. It names the problem exactly.

Needs you. It will not clear on its own.

You held the button long enough for the dongle to offer a factory reset, but the reset itself never began. Nothing was erased.

What to do

  1. Hold the button again. Keep holding past the red card, to six seconds.
  2. Your settings and designs are untouched.

The light

The light is the only signal you can read from across a room. There are three states and no others.

  • Slow green and blue breath

    Ready. Your machine can read the storage.

  • Yellow to purple sweep

    A file is moving. Do not remove power.

  • Red flash

    Your machine cannot read the storage. The screen gives the reason.

The boot report

The dongle checks itself every time it starts, and keeps the result. Open Setup, then Advanced, then the boot report. Send us the failed line and you have told us almost everything we need.

displayDisplay panel
The small screen started. A failure here is cosmetic. Everything else still works.
memoryPSRAM + heap
The dongle found its working memory. A failure here is serious and needs us.
settingsSettings
Your name, machine, format and time zone were read back.
firmwareFirmware image
The running firmware version, and which slot it booted from.
machineMachine profile
Your machine was recognised, and the folder the dongle will file designs into.
microSDmicroSD card
The card answered. A failure means an empty slot, a card that is not seated, or a card that does not respond.
storageStorage
The card holds a volume your machine can read. A failure usually means the wrong format.
filesDesign files
Each design on the card was read back and checked. A failure names how many did not read.
networkWi-Fi network
The dongle joined your network and has an address. This one may say it is still joining, which is normal at start-up.
timeClock
The clock was set from the network. Only the dates shown beside designs depend on this.
usbUSB to machine
The dongle offered itself to your machine as a memory stick. A failure here is why your machine sees nothing.
heapFree memory
Enough memory was left after start-up. A failure warns of trouble before it becomes a fault.
screenPreviews
The design previews drew. A failure is cosmetic, and it is skipped on purpose in safe mode.

Safe mode

If the dongle starts three times in a row without finishing, it stops drawing the screen. If it happens five times in a row, it stops using the light as well.

This is deliberate. The screen and the light are the two things most likely to stop a start-up, so the dongle gives them up to keep moving designs.

A dongle in safe mode still works. It still takes designs and your machine still reads them.

  1. Open the boot report at Setup, then Advanced. It says how many starts failed.
  2. Install the current firmware. A new version always starts the count again.
  3. Tell us if it returns to safe mode after that.

Designs and file formats

What is the difference between a design file and a stitch file?

A stitch file holds the actual needle movements. Your machine sews it. DST, JEF, PES and EXP are stitch files.

A design file holds artwork and settings, the way a photograph editor's project file holds layers. A Wilcom .EMB is a design file. No machine can sew an .EMB. Somebody with digitising software opens it and exports a stitch file from it.

The dongle still carries your design file onto the storage. It labels the file plainly, so you are never left wondering why the machine will not open it.

Which formats can I send?

Twenty-eight embroidery formats, including DST, PES, PEC, JEF, JEF+, EXP, VP3, VIP, HUS, SHV, PCS, SEW, ART and XXX.

Files that are not embroidery files are refused, and the message tells you why.

Your machine reads only some of those. When you send a format your machine does not read, the message says so and names the formats it does read. The file still goes on the storage, because it is your card.

Why can I not see a preview of this file?

Previews are drawn for DST, JEF, PES, PEC, EXP and VP3. Those are the formats read by 57 of the 63 machines on our list.

For anything else the gallery says which of two things is true. Either the file is a design file, which holds no stitches to draw. Or it is a stitch file in a format the app cannot draw yet.

Either way the design is on the storage, exactly as you made it, and the machine gets it. A missing preview is never a missing design.

Can it convert between formats?

It can copy a design as DST or as JEF, from the design sheet. You choose that deliberately.

The dongle never converts a file on its own, and the original is always kept.

The storage card

Embroidery machines are particular about storage. The dongle applies these rules for the machine you selected. You should not have to think about them. Here they are anyway.

FAT32

Not exFAT and not NTFS.

Two gigabytes or less, for many machines

Thirteen machines on our list refuse anything larger. One refuses anything above 512 megabytes.

4096-byte allocation units

This is what the machines expect, and it is what the dongle writes.

Designs in the folder that machine reads

For fourteen machines on our list, including the Janome MB-4, that folder is EMB/EMBF, spelled exactly that way. A design outside it is invisible to the machine.

Preparing the storage erases every design on it. Save your designs somewhere else first. The dongle never formats the storage on its own. You choose it, and the dongle warns you before it starts.

Manuals to download

These are not written yet. The instructions on this page are complete and current in the meantime.

  • Quick start

    One page. Plugging in, joining Wi-Fi, first design.

    Not available yet

  • Full manual

    Every screen, every setting, every message.

    Not available yet

  • Card and formats reference

    Folder rules and format lists per machine.

    Not available yet

Getting in touch

If none of the above helped, write to us. Have these ready, because they turn a guess into an answer.

  • The dongle's name and the firmware version, both shown on the Help page in the app.
  • Which machine is selected in Setup.
  • The boot report, from Setup then Advanced.
  • If setup itself failed: open http://ss.local/setup/trail and copy the text. That is the dongle's own record of the first-run walk, and it survives the restart that setup ends with.