Pt. 1
I spent so long writing this digitsmith auto logged me out. But i do like that Digidana replyed cause that was a genuinely in my comments. (managed to copy paste below) apparently it was also to long.
Okay to summarize my LT
R you've bought what is somewhat of a lemon... and you have 3 options take a loss on it and sell it for about $1000 or find a sucker... newbie.... cause my later model brother 1201 with a much more powerful control box but is 100% the same mechanics is worth of maybe that $2400 at most currently. lastly... You take that machine, you use it, but forget software... I can send you a test DST and if you PM me I can tell you how to load the file... And then because a single head is not profitable in your model YOU take what i say below and INVEST not in software but a used 4-head or 6-head.
(sorry to say I am not the most coddling I am someone who has lost money making mistakes but i am the most "active expert" internet wise on brother industrial embroidery equipment due to brother basically saying "we are done with this" in 2009 and completely firing all the high paid experts. And i have had to reinvent the wheel, all the others are about 50-60y/o and are hard af to get a hold of and cost 3x as much and I end up teaching them things they didn't know I actively know more about the value of used machines.) I have genuine previously employed brother techs calling/emailing me up for what i rebuilt.
Okay as a note for figuring out pricing No matter what the production method you are using... the math for pricing should always be based on (cost + overhead + profit divided by time for production)...
Now the issue that you will run into is, if you are trying to be competitive at a 10-12 piece minimum. you wont be able to price it low enough to be competitive and sustainable Your competitors will probably have a 4 head or a 6 head machine (4-6 simultaneous identical products). So essentially your pricing would never be low enough with a single head unless your working out of a garage... which... even then you wouldn't be able to compete with high production facilities meant to handle 100 item orders or so. that Said if you work out of your home... Let it be known i will still tell you things but I officially will withhold key details... mainly cause I offer paid onsite training both in introduction. Provide free tools to at least look at what your doing. and teach the basics all the way up to more advanced things. (especially on brother machines) But again i charge money.
As a note a single small 6 square inch logo can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes to run based on detail. and it can go up from there. A full back logo can take up to 4 hours or so. Stitchount is usually the math people spout but they assign pricing based on time studies and division of production if they know what they are doing and newbies make the mistake of replicating that model without understanding WHY its that price.