Issue link: https://docs.hic.us/i/403552
centerpiece of the operation. It doesn't take long to figure out that this is the wrong machine, though it certainly has an attractive price tag. To better understand the advanced features and options offered by commercial equipment, it helps to see how it compares to the hobby level machine. A hobby machine, or home machine as it's commonly referred to by commercial Embroiderers, was created for that purpose – a home-based hobby. It's designed to be used for lightweight jobs on a part-time basis, which is typical of a hobbyist. The construction is lightweight and incorporates medium grade electronics and drive systems, thus keeping the price low and in a range that a hobbyist can afford. A commercial machine, on the other hand, is designed with hard use in mind. It can run trouble-free 24 hours a day, 7 days per week for many years. The drive systems are heavy-duty and extremely precise to ensure top quality stitching on even the bulkiest fabrics. But the real defining differences are time and versatility. To make a profit, you have to charge a legitimate price that covers your production costs and overhead. If you determine that you need to make $20.00 an hour to be profitable, then you have to charge enough money for your sewing to ensure that you bring in at least that much. You also have to be able to handle a wide variety of garments with ease. The customer who wants embroidered golf shirts, may also need jackets, sweaters, and caps. If you can't handle all of his needs, then he is likely to find someone else who can. Lets look at some examples of how the two types of machines compare for given situations. Someone brings you four golf shirts and wants their seven-color logo embroidered on the left chest. The logo is around 7500 stitches. How long will that take to run on a single needle hobby machine? It will have to be rethreaded seven times, which slows down the job and is very intensive manual work. You will also need to baby-sit the machine so you can be ready to rethread when needed. With a multi-needle commercial machine, there is no re-threading for color changes. It simply moves to the next thread color, by selecting different needles, automatically. It even trims the thread as it goes. No baby-sitting is required. This means that while the machine embroiders the first shirt, you start hooping the second one, which increases your productivity tremendously. And how fast can a hobby machine sew? 400 stitches per minute? Most commercial machines can tackle this job at a brisk 800 stitches per minute, or more. Using a commercial embroidery machine, you should be able to finish this order in one hour or less. With a home machine it may take two hours or more. Going back to our "assumed" overhead of $20.00 hour, the four shirts cost you $5.00 each to produce on the commercial machine, but $10.00 or more on the home machine. Plus, the commercial machine required a lot less manual labor to accomplish the task. www.hsi.us care@hsi.us 20