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No machine category offers as many possible embroidery applications as the singlehead. Here's a guide to determine which type of machine best suits your business model and creative leaning.
embroidery machine manufacturers continue to introduce technology to make embroidery easier and faster - and to meet the needs of a diverse customer base. Those achievements translate into probably the broadest array of machines in the history of the industry, with singlehead models in particular outnumbering multiheads in ranges of price, sizes and features.
If you haven't been to an Imprinted Sportswear Show (ISS) recently, a stroll through the aisles of any of the seven venues this year will illustrate what we mean. Based on our January visit to ISS Long Beach, here's a sampling of the equipment you can expect to see.
Portable "Bridge" Machines
At ISS Long Beach, two new machines joined the consumer-friendly family of "bridge" machines first introduced by Brother Intl. Corp., Bridgewater, N.J., with the 6-needle PR-600IIC and then followed by Happy Industrial Corp. (U.S. distributor, Texmac, Charlotte, N.C.) with its 12-needle Voyager HCS-1201-30 (current model designations).
The new models are Mahway, N J. -based Janome's 4-needle MB-4, weighing only 44 pounds, and the 6-needle, 108-pound SWF Sub Compact-6, which the company describes as a "home fashion automatic embroidery machine" but whose embroidery head is borrowed from SWF's commercial machines, says Scott Colman, president, SWF East, Tampa., FIa. The machine was shown in the booth of SWF/Mesa Distributors, Fort Worth, Texas, which distributes SWF west of the Mississippi.
Designed to bridge the gap between household and industrial embroidery machines, these models are notable for their consumer-friendly features (built-in memory card slots and USB ports), compact footprint and light weight.
Networkable Compacts
Among the new tubular compact machines introduced this year are Tajima's Neo2 (TEJTNeo II-C1501), which adds a data port for serial, LAN and USB connections, as well as more than doubling memory capacity to 640,000 stitches. The company is touting both its wired and wireless networking capability, either with other singleheads or with Tajima multiheads. "All the [Tajima] machines are updating to be network friendly, but every machine is still a stand-alone unit," says Jimmy Lamb, director of education for Tajima USA Sales & Support, Hauppauge, N.Y.
The...