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10/28/2016 Troubleshooting Design Problems: Don't Shoot the Digitizer <strong>Embroidery</strong> Article<br />
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Not Yet Rated<br />
Troubleshooting Design Problems: Don't<br />
Shoot the Digitizer<br />
By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb on January 01, 2009<br />
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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<br />
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<br />
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<br />
the finished logo back from the digitizer . You check your email every two minutes, but there is nothing there other than more<br />
useless “spam”. As you pace a little more frantically , a blood vessel in your forehead begins to throb. Profane thoughts begin to<br />
flood your mind. Suddenly you’re overcome with an uncontrollable desire to pickup the phone and call that “slowasaturtle”<br />
digitizer and scream at him. Better yet, maybe you could reach through the phone and strangle him with his mouse cord. Just as<br />
you reach the height of your anxiety, ready to cross the line into insanity , a distant electronic chime penetrates the hail of spinning<br />
outofcontrol thoughts in your brain. What was that sound? The realization hits and you quickly regain your composure. Email, it’ s<br />
email! You run to the computer and sure enough, there is the file, ready for download. “Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou” you shout.<br />
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<br />
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<br />
properly. Hurriedly, you hoop the first shirt and place it on the machine. Y ou set up the color sequence, give everything one last<br />
cursory glance and hit start. The sewing process begins. Y ou watch for the first hundred stitches or so, until you are confident<br />
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<br />
relax as you realize that you will make the deadline after all.<br />
When the machine finally completes the first run, you rush over with another shirt in hand,<br />
ready to make the swap. You quickly remove the finished shirt, and replace it with the next<br />
one, a broad smile on your face as you admire your ef ficiency. You hit the start button, then<br />
reach over and pick up the finished shirt to admire your work. Y our smiling face slowly<br />
changes into a blank look of shock. Then it rapidly transitions to red and finally a deep<br />
crimson, as anger replaces confusion. “That @#$% digitizer!” you scream. “This looks like<br />
&*?@, it’s puckered and the outlines don’t line up.” Rage overwhelms you as you realize<br />
that you won’t meet the deadline, because the embroidery has registration problems,<br />
obviously the fault of the digitizer. You march over to the phone ready to call the puncher<br />
and chew him out. ST OP!<br />
How do you know that the registration problems in the design were caused by poor<br />
digitizing? It’s so easy to blame the digitizer for sewing problems, but in many cases<br />
he/she is not to blame. In reality , there are three areas of the embroidery process that can cause quality and registration problems:<br />
hooping, machine setup, digitizing. Sewing quality issues can easily be caused by any one of the three as well as a combination of<br />
the three. Some times it is the digitizing, but not always. Y ou have to do some troubleshooting to determine the real cause or<br />
causes. Look for more "T roubleshooting Design Problems" articles next month that will cover these three areas to see how they<br />
affect embroidery quality.<br />
More From This Author<br />
Road Warriors IV: Onsite Operations, Electrical Needs, Generators and FollowUp Sales By James M.<br />
(Jimmy) Lamb<br />
Road Warriors III: Displays, Transportation, Insurance and Setup By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb<br />
Road Warriors I: Introduction to Mobile <strong>Embroidery</strong> By James M. (Jimmy) Lamb<br />
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