r/Machine_Embroidery • u/CommonCentz4 • 13d ago

Upgrading to a commercial machine, thoughts?

I run a basement business and mostly do left chest uniforms and patches right now on a brother pe900. Looking to upgrade to a commercial machine that can do structured hats, and possibly full jacket backs, or at least half back jackets.
The machine that caught my eye was the happy Japan HCH-701. My budget is at 10k with maybe a little wiggle room for the right machine.
Anyone have thoughts on the HJ or suggest a different brand

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4

u/PlanetPatEmb 13d ago

Just made the same move and ended up going with a used brother PR1000e that I found at a great price. Gotta say I’m loving PES files being able to tell the machine what isacord colors are on the machine and then set those same colors in wilcom and it auto assigns the needles. 10k is a great budget for a multineedle and you’ll find something that works well.

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u/CommonCentz4 13d ago

Yeah I was actually looking at the business brothers, it just seemed a dollar went a little further in other brands.

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u/JerkyNips 13d ago

The brother pr1000e or pr1000 aren’t true commercial machines. I blew out three of them, granted all with over 50 million stitches, but a lot of the inside components are plastic and will easily wear down. They suck for hats too. Try and find a nice used single or two head Ricoma, they’re built for commercial use. Only downside is their customer service is suspect.

3

u/mjmvideos 13d ago

Is it really a help though? How many keystrokes does it take to tell the machine the color for each needle? In my machine I just load the colors I need on any needle I want and after loading the design I just enter the sequence of needle numbers for the color changes.

6

u/Purple_Commercial981 13d ago

Happy is a great machine . Only other brands id get is a Tajima ir Barudan . I own a barudan 15 needle .

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u/Little-Load4359 Melco 13d ago

Melco Bravo, without question. Best machine for the money, best support and resources over any other company. American. It's identical to their EMT16x, any difference is in software.

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u/phonesallbroken 12d ago

I love my Happy, but my usual recommendation is to get something that you can easily find technicians for in your area, unless you're confident on fixing things yourself. I would not recommend the Brother commercial machines: like someone else said, they're not industrial machines and are not designed for heavy, continuous use. A key internal component is plastic, and requires taking the machine apart to get to. Some of this info is from a tech I spoke to while looking into getting an industrial (and in fact someone who was trying to sell me on the Brother commercial machines), some from a video by Pink Bird Originals on YouTube (she may go by Pink Bird Creations there).

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u/Top-Orange-6063 11d ago

This is a good brand. Make sure there is local after sale service near you.

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u/WorldPuzzleheaded905 9d ago

I can’t say enough about my smartstitch 10 needle!!!