You could have a compatability problem causing your problem. Janome is pretty precise on what will and will not work.

Did you format the card to the machine. My dealer told me to put the card in the machine and save one of the designs on the machine to the card. Mine saves in a folder called EMB5. Also, the larger the card is the longer it takes the machine to find a particular design. For that reason, I bought the smallest size card. You don't want to save your designs on the card, just use it to sew out the designs. Save the designs on a floppy or on the computer if space is not a problem. Remember to save in a file you can find later when you want to use the design again.

I bought one of these a week ago. Are you downloading the files in .jef format? And are you sliding them into the EMB folder?
I've found that it works better to actually copy/paste the designs onto the card. Just sliding them doesn't seem to always work. E-mail me if you have any more probs - we can probably muddle along together!

You do need format the card in your Janome first. 512 maybe too big. The smaller the card the better as its only going to hold 100 designs no matter what the size is. The bigger and more designs it has the longer to open on your machine. You may want to consider getting several smaller cards. I've bought new 8mb and 16mb on ebay for very little. Your designs do need to be in the JEF format. I use the drag and drop method. I open the drive on My Computer that has my card and then make the window about 1/2 the size of my monitor, I then open the folder where my designs are and make it have the size of my monitor and drag the design over the EMB5 folder which is the only folder the 300E uses.
Hope this helps,
Joly
Janome 300E
Embird
http://community.webshots.com/user/jlfribley59

Hi,
I also have a Janome 300E, but I got the Gigi Hoop and Customizer 10000 Plus when I purchased mine. The Customizer progran allows you to easily save your designs to the flash card. In the Easy edit mode you can click on the ATA card on the tool bar and then choose the read, wirte, erase option. You open the folder,CD, or disk where your designs are saved, put a check mark by the designs you want to transfer, then click the write button in the middle. It will automatically send the JEF designs in the EmbF5 format that your machine needs.
If you did get the customizer, I know Janome occasionally has promotions that give you certain items as a package deal, it makes it easy to do.

If all else fails, instead of getting frustrated with the machine, call your dealer or go by and have them show you the easiest way for you to save your designs in the EmbF5 folder. I also found Janomie technical support very helpful and prompt with their replys. You can go to Janome website or email them at JAI Software Support, The E-mail Address is:
softwaresupport@janome-america.com

I don't know if this helps or not, as I didn't know what software you had available to use.

Do you know anyone else that has a 300E, that maybe could mentor you??? I have a friend that got her 300E before I did, but she didn't do much with computers, so she gave me the money and I got her the cards and the reader/writer. I went to her house and hooked it up and showed her how to use it.

I love my machine, I got it in Jan of 2005. I have done some digitizing with the customizer program. It's fun, but boy is it time consuming.

I hope you get your problems worked out, so you can really enjoy your machine.

Patti

I got a smaller flash card, 256MB, and that seems to have fixed my problem! Thanks so much for the replies! Now I'm having another problem. I'll search the archives first, then I'll post if I can't find the cause/solution.

I search the internet for small memory cards - starter cards and 8 to 16 or 32 mb. If you fill up a big card, the janome may not have enough memory to access all those designs. I have categorized my designs and use a different memory card for each category. Hope this helps you. S

I heard somewhere that you can save a max of 100 designs on any sized card. That's the most the machine can read.

You can get free flash cards at Walgreens when you buy batteries. Look over on the wall by the registers. I bought several packages of batteries w/them in there.