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15. Wildcard week

Group assignment:

None

Individual assignment:

Have you answered these questions?

  • Documented how you made your creation

  • Described problems and how you fixed them

  • Included your design files and ‘hero shot’ of the result

What I’ve done this week

Overview

This week, I used embroidery machines to embroider T-shirts.

Neil T-shirt

This is a T-shirt with a portrait of Professor Neil

QR code T-shirt

FabLab Kuriyama is where I work as a lab staff.

I created this QR code T-shirt to be a walking advertisement.

FabLab Kuriyama

The embroidery machine used is TAJIMA SAI 彩 (JPN).

  • Make Neil T-shirt

  • Make QR code T-shirt

Make Neil T-shirt

Procreate

First, I drew Professor Neil.

TAJIMA Writer PLUS

This is the software to enable raster data to be read into embroidery machines.

Tajima Writer Plus is vendor-distributed machine-attached software.

You can use the trial version at the following link.

Tajima Writer Plus Trial version download page

Click on the icon below to select the image you wish to convert to embroidery data.

Select the image to be embroidered in raster data

Select “Trace All”

This is the setting for selecting the tracing style.

You can choose to “Trace all” or “Trace the outer shape”.

You can transform the image with the settings here, but in this case I used the default settings.

Here you can decide the color of the thread to be used.

I use white thread this time.

You can set the image area, but this time I did not change anything and used the default values.

The recipe style of the design is set to T-shirt, and the “thread cut” is set to “always”.

You can check the segment.

Scroll to see all segments.

When you are satisfied, click “Done”.

Enlarge the image to its maximum size to fit in the embroidery frame below.

The embroidery frame can be selected from two sizes, 100mmx100mm300mmx200mm, in this case I chose 300mmx200mm.

Export in TCF format

The embroidery frame is set on the T-shirt.

To stretch the T-shirt tightly, place the sheet between the embroidery frames.

Put it away in T-shirt.

Adjust position

Close the frame screws.

Stretch out wrinkles so that they can be embroidered properly.

Set the clothes in the machine.

Mark the center.

Activate the power supply and connect the USB memory stick.

Select USB.

Open the target file.

The following is displayed

Next, assign the color of the thread you want to embroider

In this state, the color is not selected, so it is selected.

Assign a color to each number as follows

Since only number 1 is used this time, any other color can be chosen as long as the color of number 1 is correct.

Once the colors are set, the following screen appears.

Select the size of the embroidery frame, 300mmx200mm.

Set the origin in the middle.

The origin is aligned with the area marked in the middle with the cursor.

The laser pointer’s intersection and the mark are in the same position.

Select the set button to complete the setup.

Trace before starting.

The following error occurred

Y-axis driver malfunctioned, so I checked the manual, turned off the power, waited 5 seconds, and restarted the machine

it says ” (Code 323) Y-axis driver defective, wye-axis driver detected over.

Please turn off the power and wait at least 5 seconds before turning it on again. If the system does not recover, please contact your distributor”

The cause was that the sleeve fabric of the long-sleeved T-shirt was too thick, which stopped the movement of the Y-axis.

A long-sleeved T-shirt with thick fabric could not be embroidered in a 90-degree tilted orientation.

Therefore, I changed the orientation of img to the same orientation as the embroidery frame in tajima writer plus.

The tracing process was successful and the start button can be pressed!

Press the start button.

Embroidery begins as follows

It was completed as follows

Remove the sheet that was placed underneath.

Done👍

Make QR code T-shirt

QR Code Generator

First, I created a QR code for fablab Kuriyama using QR Code Generator.

You can immediately issue a QR Code by entering the URL you want to make into a QR Code.

TAJIMA Writer PLUS

Import the QR code img

The settings are the same as the previous setting.

Embroidery Machine

Machine set up

it was a little difficult to set up for threading. adding the video how to thread the thread.

Preparation

The clothes were wrinkled, Iron clothes to remove wrinkles.

Mark the center of the area to be embroidered

Tuck the sheet under the area to be sewn.

Set the T-shirt on the machine

To open a file from a USB flash drive, select USB.

Align the origin

As before, set the colors. This time, use only black color.

Press START Button, embroidery begins as follows

When embroidering a large embroidery, the under thread may be runs out in one embroidery.

The following error message is displayed when the under thread runs out.

Remove the bobbin on which the lower thread was wound.

Set the machine to wind the lower thread.

After winding is complete, cut the thread.

Put the bobbin in the case.

When the case is tucked away, pull the threads as follows to check for snagging.

Put it away as follows

Now that embroidery can resume, click the Start button.

Embroidery has resumed successfully.

It was completed as follows

Remove the sheet that was placed underneath.

Done🔥

What I learned

I have enjoyed using the embroidery machine, which is a recent addition to the lab. I am going to continue to learn the embroidery machine as it can be used to embroider hats, socks, and bags etc.

Appendix

Last update: June 11, 2022