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Troubleshooting

This is for the following cable links:

   Serial SilverLink 3

   Serial BrotherLink 1 and 3

   Serial E6000Link 1

   SilverLink 4 or 5 (when Find Link doesn’t work and before doing Refresh Firmware)

Make sure your USB cable or USB converter is attached. If your USB cable has a power supply unit make sure it is switched on.

Open Device Manager as follows.

1. Under Windows 10 or 11, select Settings. In the main Settings window, there is a search box that says “Find a setting”. Type Device Manager into the search box and then select Device Manager from the list that appears. Under other versions of Windows, open a "Computer" window and select "Control Panel" (it may also be necessary to select "Performance and Maintenance" or “System and Security”) then “System”, “Hardware” and finally “Device Manager”.

2. Make sure View / Devices by type is selected.

3. In the list of devices, double click on "Ports (COM & LPT)".

4. This will produce additional lines in the list of devices, one for each port that the computer has. Each new line will be something like “USB serial port”, and will show the port for each connected DesignaKnit cable link or USB to serial converter.

5. You can check whether the listed device refers to your cable link or USB converter by unplugging the link or converter. If the listed device disappears, this is a good indication that it did refer to the link or converter. Please reconnect it for the remaining points.

6. If there is a yellow icon showing an exclamation mark next to the port, click here and ignore the rest of this page. Or if you cannot find the port listed, but there is a category called Other Devices, and this category contains a device that is marked with a yellow exclamation icon, click here and ignore the rest of this page.

7. The COM number that the driver has assigned is shown in brackets. The COM number is the same as a serial port number. DesignaKnit 8 and 9 are able to use any port number up to 99.  

8. Start DesignaKnit and go to Interactive Knitting. Close the opening dialogue and from the main Interactive Knitting menu select Options / Knitting machine / Setup. Set the serial port to one of the numbers that you found listed in Device Manager. Finish by selecting OK twice.

9. Close down Device Manager.

Identifying the port number may solve the problem that you were having about the port being unavailable. If you are not using a USB to serial converter, and after doing this there is the same problem, please try a different port number that was listed in Device Manager, or attach the cable link to a different connector on the computer.

If there is now a different kind of problem, click here to start the guide again.

Using Device Manager to find a cable’s port number

To return to Cable Links Troubleshooting, click here.

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