We're about to take the plunge into a sewing/embroider machine and are looking seriously at the new Brother NV500D for what appears to be a nice mix of features at a price we're willing to pay. We're only getting started with this. Usage will be light-to-moderate, with a mix of ordinary sewing and embroidery.
We looked at the PE-Design5 package. Seems to us that the machine is severely hobbled in capability without some sort of programming front-end, however, the price of this software is laughable. So I'm looking for an alternative. I've Googled until I'm blue in the face and have turned up what appears to be a number of third-party packages that are priced somewhat less insanely. So here are a couple of newbie questions that maybe someone can help me with:
- The flash ram that Brother uses -- is this just an ordinary Compact Flash card? Looks like it to me, but I don't have one in my possession.
- If the answer to #1 is 'yes' then why would you need to buy a card programmer at the absurd prices the machine manufacturers and the aftermarket suppliers are asking? A USB-connected multi-format card reader programmer for general purpose use costs all of for the top of the line. In fact, I already have a PC-Card-to-CF adapter sitting in my notebook PC that treats CF cards like just another disk drive. Is there any reason a general-purpose CF reader/programmer can't write the format and data the machines can read?
- It appears that one of the nice features of PE-Design is digitizing scanned or photographic images. In addition, it has some kind of editing capability to touch up the results to put them into a form suitable for embroidering. I'm sure there are other packages that have similar capabilities. I've looked at, maybe, ten of the possible alternatives to PE-design, and am pretty confused about what they do. Can anyone recommend a digitizing/editing package they actuallly use, preferably with a Brother machine, that they're happy with? Even better, one that's already capable of writing the raw format the card requires, hopefully without the need for spending 0 for a card programmer.
- Lastly, am I overlooking something or misunderstanding something?
Many thanks for any help you can give.