How-To: Hacking the Brother KH-930e Knitting Machine

Craft & Design Yarncraft

brother_kh930e_knitting_machine_adafabric.jpg

Limor “Ladyada” Fried and I just finished up a extensive tutorial on hacking the Brother KH-930e knitting machine. We show you how to make your own cable for interfacing with the machine, then how to use it to put custom patterns on the machine without entering them by hand, as I had been doing previously (one excruciating pixel at a time). I made the above tessellating adafruits fabric and the dithering experiment below. Look out for a CRAFT Video about the knitting machine hacking this Friday!

brother_kh930e_knitting_machine_dither.jpg

Watch the CRAFT Video on the topic.

7 thoughts on “How-To: Hacking the Brother KH-930e Knitting Machine

  1. Emma Hall says:

    Is that some QR Code fabric in the background of the last 2 photos?

  2. Becky Stern says:

    Indeed it is!

  3. Leslie says:

    I made a collection with a lot of gradient knits in it. It is really nice to work with. http://www.leslieeisinger.nl
    To bad I didn’t find something about hacking the knitting machine. I thought it was to difficult and bought the original software. Which is very good en powerful, but expensive.

  4. Leslie says:

    Does it work? Can you scan the code. I also tried it, but I didn’t get mine to work yet.

  5. chantelle says:

    I have a singer 560 that will not pattern, and I am assuming that the trouble lies with the electronics in the board. I know you can purchase dak (designaknit) and bypass the board, so would it be possible to do the same using this method of yours? I am not sure where the singer saves the pattern to, there is no drive like on the brother,so i guess it has internal memory on the board. Any suggestions would be great, as right now I have a defunct machine that I would absolutely love to put to good use.
    thanks
    beth

  6. Becky Stern says:

    I doubt you’ll find our code helpful. It does not control the rotary encoders directly, but works to put patterns on the writable RAM on board, and appears to use a nonstandard file format that Singer does not share. If your machine’s board is kaput, you could always replace it by looking around on ebay… and your machine should still be able to make garments (solids, stripes, etc) without the patterning ability. Best of luck!

  7. lone brejning says:

    Wow great! Do you think the cable wil work with Designaknit to ?

Comments are closed.

Discuss this article with the rest of the community on our Discord server!
Tagged

Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

View more articles by Becky Stern

ADVERTISEMENT

Maker Faire Bay Area 2023 - Mare Island, CA

Escape to an island of imagination + innovation as Maker Faire Bay Area returns for its 15th iteration!

Buy Tickets today! SAVE 15% and lock-in your preferred date(s).

FEEDBACK