16. Wildcard: Digital Embrodiery Machine¶
Assignment¶
This week’s assignment was a wildcard, meaning we could pick the machine and process from a number of options. In my case, Haystack has a digital embrodiery machine and I have only used it a handful of times, so I would like to use this week as an opportunity to learn more about this machine and the digital embroidery process.
Design¶
My design was done in Adobe Illustrator, and it is a simple interepretation of the Haystack branding suitable for embrodiering on a t-shirt. The graphic is a vector that was black/white and exported as a JPG file format.
Our machine is a Brother SE-1800, which was discontinued, but still has a comprehensive support page.
In order to turn my image into a set of instructions for the machine, you need to use Brother’s commerical software PE Design Plus. The software is straight out of the Windows XP/early-2000s era of computing and user interface, which was a welcome moment of nostalgia.
Despite the interface, the software is surprisingly easy to turn a simple graphic into a set of embroidery machine instructions. If you are using this software, there is something you can use called the New File Wizard, which allows you to quickly start a new project. There are several different project types available, but the one that is most common is the Auto Punch project. This creates a stitch pattern that will use the colors in the graphic to create the patterns.
Importing a JPG works fine. You just need to crop the image before proceeding with the CAM/Toolpath process.
This last step is essentially creating the toolpath instructions. The software does some digital image processing to detect the different colors and shapes. Then you can select how many colors you want to include in your toolpath. In my case, I am starting with a simple project so it is just one color (black). It is important to note that the software will assume you want to include the white background as a stitch pattern by default, but you can disable the white by clicking on the color block in the Omit Region Colors section. Once you are happy with your settings, you can click on finish and you will get a preview of the stitch pattern. The rendering is sufficeint, and you can do some further tweaking to adjust tension and density of the stitch pattern.
Fabrication¶
Once you are done with the software, you use the provided Compact Flash Memory Card reader and memory card. The software will instruct you to write the instructions directly to the memory card. You can also store one set of instructions at a time, so you will overwrite anything previously stored on the card.
Embroidery Hoops¶
The above three photos illustrate the process of setting up the embroidery hoops with the target fabric. In my case, I am making a t-shirt so I select a portion of the shirt on the bottom right-hand corner and install the hoop. The hoop consists of two parts, you need to sandwich this all together with a backing material called interfacing, which helps stiffen the fabric and provides better embroidered results.
Embroidery Machine¶
Once you have the hoop installed, you can easily plug the hoop adapter to the machine. You then need to go through a process of threading the machine, which I will not cover. The machine is slightly damaged and so the auto-threading mechanism was not working but you can manually thread the machine. It is surprisingly easy to do this, and that says a lot coming from me, who has zero experience working with sewing machines.
The machine’s interface is amazingly vague and confusing. The blue screen button with the two overlapping rectanges (bottom-left) is the button to read the data from the memory card. I guess it is supposed to represent a memory card…
Once you select the instruction set, you get a quick preview. If you have mulitple color threads programmed, it will tell you which color you are on.
You need to lower the pressure foot when you are ready to start. The start button is the UP arrow and will turn from red to green when ready to start.
The machine begins by slowly stitching the first few stitches and then picks up speed and is off to the races.
Embroidery Machine Operating¶
The machine is fun to watch in operation for the first minute, and then like a 3D printer, is like watching paint dry. I still enjoyed watching the machine build up the pattern.
Here is a quick, 15-second video of the machine operating and then getting stuck. I had some issues with the machine unthreading itself. It was probably user error threading the machine and not setting the appropriate tension. However, the machine is smart to stop, detect the error and let you re-thread and pick up where you left off. This happened about three times over the course of the project.
Another quick video of the machine in operation, this time a time-lapse video. I couldn’t get the whole process start to finish because of the machine unthreading itself and I was holding the camera with my hand. Still a pretty cool video of the machine in action.
Final Results¶
Overall, it took the machine about 10 minutes to finish the pattern. It probably would have gone faster had it not unthread and stopped several times.
The final pattern ended up in the wrong orientation. Next time, I need to take care to orient the fabric and pattern properly to get the desired results. The pattern also could be a little denser to create a better looking logo of Haystack. However, it actually came out better than I expected and I am definitely going to be doing more projects with this machine.