10/28/2016 Troubleshooting Design Problems: Improper Digitizing <strong>Embroidery</strong> Article Share this project: 0 0 0 Meet The Author: James M. (Jimmy) Lamb Awardwinning author and international speaker Jimmy Lamb has over 15 years of embroidery experience as well as 10 years of professional digitizing experience (as a business owner). Currently, he is the Director of T raining and Education for Hirsch International Corp., where he has been instrumental in developing their educational seminars. https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/emb_learning/article/585/troubleshootingdesignproblemsimproperdigitizing.aspx 2/2
10/28/2016 Troubleshooting Design Problems: Don't Shoot the Digitizer <strong>Embroidery</strong> Article (Click Image to Enlarge) Not Yet Rated Troubleshooting Design Problems: Don't Shoot the Digitizer By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb on January 01, 2009 Share Your Project 0 0 0 You’re anxiously pacing the floor while glaring at the clock. T ime is of the essence! Y ou have to deliver two dozen embroidered shirts to a hot new client by 4:30pm and it’ s already 1:00pm. Miss the deadline and you lose the customer . Everything is ready. The shirts are stacked on the hooping table, the machine is threaded, and the backing is cut and ready to go. The only thing left is to get the finished logo back from the digitizer . You check your email every two minutes, but there is nothing there other than more useless “spam”. As you pace a little more frantically , a blood vessel in your forehead begins to throb. Profane thoughts begin to flood your mind. Suddenly you’re overcome with an uncontrollable desire to pickup the phone and call that “slowasaturtle” digitizer and scream at him. Better yet, maybe you could reach through the phone and strangle him with his mouse cord. Just as you reach the height of your anxiety, ready to cross the line into insanity , a distant electronic chime penetrates the hail of spinning outofcontrol thoughts in your brain. What was that sound? The realization hits and you quickly regain your composure. Email, it’ s email! You run to the computer and sure enough, there is the file, ready for download. “Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou” you shout. Quickly, you download the design and prepare to sew it. Reason would dictate that you run a sewout first, but the clock says no. So you take a chance. This particular digitizer is supposed to be one of the best, so there is very little chance that the design won’t sew properly. Hurriedly, you hoop the first shirt and place it on the machine. Y ou set up the color sequence, give everything one last cursory glance and hit start. The sewing process begins. Y ou watch for the first hundred stitches or so, until you are confident things are going well. Then you turn away to focus on hooping the next shirt, as well as a few administrative details. Y ou begin to relax as you realize that you will make the deadline after all. When the machine finally completes the first run, you rush over with another shirt in hand, ready to make the swap. You quickly remove the finished shirt, and replace it with the next one, a broad smile on your face as you admire your ef ficiency. You hit the start button, then reach over and pick up the finished shirt to admire your work. Y our smiling face slowly changes into a blank look of shock. Then it rapidly transitions to red and finally a deep crimson, as anger replaces confusion. “That @#$% digitizer!” you scream. “This looks like &*?@, it’s puckered and the outlines don’t line up.” Rage overwhelms you as you realize that you won’t meet the deadline, because the embroidery has registration problems, obviously the fault of the digitizer. You march over to the phone ready to call the puncher and chew him out. ST OP! How do you know that the registration problems in the design were caused by poor digitizing? It’s so easy to blame the digitizer for sewing problems, but in many cases he/she is not to blame. In reality , there are three areas of the embroidery process that can cause quality and registration problems: hooping, machine setup, digitizing. Sewing quality issues can easily be caused by any one of the three as well as a combination of the three. Some times it is the digitizing, but not always. Y ou have to do some troubleshooting to determine the real cause or causes. Look for more "T roubleshooting Design Problems" articles next month that will cover these three areas to see how they affect embroidery quality. More From This Author Road Warriors IV: Onsite Operations, Electrical Needs, Generators and FollowUp Sales By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb Road Warriors III: Displays, Transportation, Insurance and Setup By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb Road Warriors I: Introduction to Mobile <strong>Embroidery</strong> By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb https://www.embroiderydesigns.com/emb_learning/article/582/troubleshootingdesignproblemsdontshootthedigitizer .aspx 1/2
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