Do you have a Bernina 290 Foot Pedal that is acting up? It could be not working at all, working only at full speed or you may have heard a loud “POP!” or have seen it smoking, etc.

Chances are you just need to open up your pedal and replace the main capacitor!

I bought this lovely Bernina 801 Sport without testing it only to find that it only ran at the highest speed. Upon researching and reading forums I discovered the culprit was most likely the main capacitor inside the pedal.

I ordered a bunch of capacitors from overseas hoping it would fix my problem so that I’d be able to sell the rest of the capacitors to others who are having the same challenge. Buying capacitors can be daunting because of all the different specifications…

…but I found these that are identical! In the pictures above you can see the original is a darker color with the leads already cut and the new one has the cardboard attached.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED FOR THIS REPAIR: New capacitor, soldering gun, solder, wire cutters, long-skinny screwdriver and a piece of thin wire/yarn/fishing line/etc.

To open your pedal you’ll need to remove the 4 small screws that are holding plastic “clamps” on the underside.

Once you have those off you’ll notice your top/bottom pieces are still stuck together. When you look inside you’ll see a white “hook” holding onto a brown plastic tab that is hanging down from the top. You need to gently pry them apart with a long-skinny screwdriver.

Once apart you’ll see a black cover held on with 3 screws. Remove them.

Here you can see the capacitor on the left side just under the white piece. To get to it you need to remove the black part that is anchoring the circuit board down. Just squeeze those two plastic fingers together in the center and wiggle it off.

Now you can get the capacitor off. You’ll need a soldering iron to melt the solder from the back side while you pull on the capacitor at the same time to get it out as soon as the solder is soft.

Next I trimmed the leads on my new capacitor to be the same length as the old one. We put it in place and soldered the wires onto the back just as the original. Easy peasy!

You are now at the hardest part. You’ll put everything back together but you’ll need to make sure the white finger that extends out is UNDER the metal tab that is attached to the circuit board. The trick will be to now keep it there when you attach the top of the pedal (remember this white piece is attached to the top of the pedal and you had to pry it off?).

To make this next process possible you need to remove the “Bernina” piece on the top of your pedal case (I believe it is removable exactly for the process you’ll follow below).

Now you’re going to use a thin piece of wire, thick fishing string, yarn, etc. to go around the white hook above. Be careful to not pull it up very much or that white finger will get pulled above the metal tab, remember!? If this happens and you go to press on your pedal to use it that finger will snap off and you’ll need to re-glue it (I know from experience)! Also, make sure you have the large springs in place.

Now you’ll fish your string/wire through the top of that open hole you created in the top of your pedal and aline the springs to fit inside the top knubs as well. You’ll see what I’m talking about!

The trick is to carefully put that white hook back inside that plastic tab hanging down. DON’T pull up TOO much (JUST enough) with your string or you’ll need to take everything back apart to get the pieces in the right place. As you’re holding the white piece in place you can pry that tab over to get it to hook onto the white piece. I used the long-skinny screwdriver.

Okay, NOW you can breathe and reattach those 4 screws and plastic clamps on the underside.

You can see here the white hook is inside the tab and I can cut & pull my wire off. Replace the “Bernina” plastic piece and YOU’RE DONE!

Hopefully this repair has fixed your machine and you’re on your way to happy sewing days 🙂

If you want to buy one of these capacitors I have them in my Ebay shop <click HERE>. They’ll ship from Raleigh, North Carolina.