August 20th, 2017, 06:32 PM
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#11 (permalink)
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Member
- Join Date:
- Jul 2016
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Re: HELP NEWBIE WHO BOUGHT BROTHER BES 1210AC
A minimum of 12 pieces, average 8000 stitchcount 8 trims/color changes) estimated averaged out time for you would be 10 minutes machine prep and material prep (cannot use the word setup cause that is what the industry calls digitizing). A single item would take approximately 15 minutes per run/swapout to the next set. meaning a set of 12 items would take you over 3 hrs. +/- Not including cutting off backing, trimming loose looped and stray threads and steaming hoopmarks out. which means assuming an average overhead cost of production plus profit margins you would have to price it at $18-$33ish to make any money while a competitor with a 4head, the same overhead costs and profit margins can price it at $6-9 per piece for the work. Single heads are more profitable when your selling an item that cost you $25, has a retail price of $50 and are charging $15 to put a name on it. or more often its better for doing 1 full back item while you are running a 4 head (the real profit machine). Or lastly modern single heads are generally designed for personalization automation where you are doing 20 items with names and have 4 single heads auto loading name files.
My suggestion is if your seriously wanting to add embroidery... starting with a single head is not how you do it. Single heads are not for mass production they are for specialized tasks, prototyping and, and small qty orders to be handled at the same time someone is running a big machine. Meaning if your serious find a way to finance a used multihead cause those things can be cheaper than a brand new single head. (12-20K for a new single head) or rethink your business model to take better advantage of its uses IE high profit margin products where you only really need 1 or 2.
People who are use to comparing screen-printing prices (especially retail) look at a full back or left chest price for embroidery and scoff and call you a rip off artist even when you have multi-head machines. But if your selling a single $150 retail price backpack with a logo that takes 15minutes to run... suddenly your making genuine profit and people don't freak out as much cause they respect the price of the item but not of the work.
You also used the word patch... Doing a logo on a piece of apparel is just considered Embroidered apparel. where as a patch is a slightly different process where you embroider onto a separate material and attach it to the garment. Doing all in house is extremely labor intensive compared to direct embroidered garments. Where as full patch making... requires a minimum of 3x4heads 2xsingle-heads, All with sash-frame flatbed attachments and powerful software or massive understanding of the machine. A single piece of fabric and backing is attached in a square and the patches are nested onto the fabric, A laser or flatbed cutter with a cut file matching the material, and a single marrowing machine (professional patch edger). 2-3 people could run that many machines efficiently reducing the price and costs of labor... reducing overhead costs and efficiently funneling the workflow.
As for your questions.
A. Easy and Good are mostly mutually separate. But if you are looking for failure and good than If you really want to pay money for something easy to use... My suggestion would be purchase wilcom lettering studio. It can create text via built in text fonts and adjust and edit a files stitch length, pull compensation, density, unerlay and angle of the EMB outline stitchfiles from a digitizer, it cannot create new objects other than text but it has powerful edit controls. usually retails for $12-15hundred. That would be my suggestion for starting point especially because wilcom does great trade in and upgrade deals allowing you to buy as you go without sacrificeing your file history (often times worth more than the software do to replication and recreation costs).
B. Digitdana here. I have not used them because I do my own digitizing but as a note the ROI is only cause I understood things by the point I bought the software 2.5 years ago I am still paying off debt for the first 2.5 years I didn't understand things... get in touch with them and they can guide you on the outsource digitizing process, and they will give you an .emb and .dst format (wilcom also offers a free tool that allows you to open raw emb outline files and make sizing, and other changes then convert to dst for the machine but don't resize more than 10% cause high detail art requires use of tools that cannot resize properly... IE manual stitch control instead of vector control.
C. A dst saves artwork with a few major control types. Penetration (stitches), Jumps (moving to a position but not creating a stitch), Trim (which in dst format is 3x 0.0 movement jumps) and lastly Color changes.
when you load a dst file into the machine you then have to do a needle select... and when the file needs to switch to a new color you define which machine needle has that color. and the reason you need to do it that way is because you can create layering effects in complex artwork for instance You need the program to go from black to white to black to create a layering effect you need adjustment. you also have instances where your running the same file on 20 things but you have half using an outline color of one color and the other half using a different color while the rest of the file remains the same. it allows you to change needles for color associated objects midway though without loading new files.
As a note trims and color changes are extreamly costly. the average time for a color change or trim on your brother single head is approximately 10-20 seconds., where stitch running rates are approximately averaged out to 750 if your running above 750 stitches per minute if its running at a good control speed and adjustment speed... The internal control settings if you have it set to high ish quality the math balances out to 1 trim is worth 250 stitches. An average file can have anywhere from 5 to 15 trims... 15 trims per file easily brings the run time up by almost 4 minutes on average. 4 minutes per run/ running 12 piece minimum is 48 minutes of total increased production time. Low quality software does not allow for improved trim control as such will cost you LOTS of production time and high quality software would be prohibitive on ROI on a single head.
D. The hat driver setup time on that... yeah there is no "improving" its swap out time there is only mastering it through practice... thats why most have swapped out to a 4 position and 5 position mount instead of 8.
And you would probably be looking at a maximum of 15-20 a day or less in terms of output...
Lastly... Oh dear... you bought that POS for $2400.... I mean... If the previous owner knew what they were doing with it kept it maintained and could prove it worked... you bought an unknown... Brother Industrial machines are presently worthless without expertise training and proof behind them. That model is so old and Brother has a poor quality compared to cost reputation... And later in their life an even poorer quality and reliability to cost reputation... its... bad.
Lets put it this way if you want to genuinely start embroidery that is an undertaking but not one to take on cheap or lightly... Many embroidery companies go out of business without the right understanding in investment... invest to low and you'll never be able to sell enough... invest to much and without the knowledge you're ROI is litterally... 6years of work trial and error debt mistakes ect if you dont invest the right way.
single head focused embroider businesses have a general thing in common. they are selling premade artwork with minor alterations and maybe stock personalization at a high premium... Usually tourist type environment where people will pay a ridiculous amount...
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