Renaissance (Great Notions) any good?

Hi!

We are planning on buying a commercial embroidery machine. Our eye fell a.o. on the Great Notions' Renaissance embroidery machine. Since we're a small company (3 members family business) and job request are all about less than 100 pieces, this seems the ideal machine for us - regarding its price at approx. 1/5 of what "the big guys" (such as Barudan, ZSK, Toyota) offer.

We saw the machine at a congress, and it looked sturdy and solid to us. But it had a thread breach 4 times in a job 3 by 6 centimeters. The vendor appologized and blamed it on the heat from the spotlight above it, yarn being too dry(?), and too little time setting it up. Also, they said to be firsttimers on embroidery (as are we) and hadn't had the time to properly adjust the machine.

We pulled up several threads on groups.google.com, saying both "hands off; it's crap" and "buy it buy it buy it; good bargain". Now we are confused...

Well, has anyone any experiences with this thing? Are there reasons for buying it immediately / looking the other way and saving good money?

Reply to
Joost Egelie
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I saw this machine at the Martha Pullen show in Arlington Tx. I thought it very noisy, even in an open enviornment and it vibrated alot. I am not in the market for a machine like this so it was just an observation.

-- Sugar & Spice Quilts by Linda E

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Reply to
nana2b

I don't know where you are, but a friend of mine just bought a used reconditioned Melcro from someone whose business is repairing and refurbishing machines and who guarantees them for a year. The price was lower than a TOL domestic sewing-embroidery machine, yet it's fast and accurate, and will get my friend's small business rolling. It seemed to me to be a good way to start out. You might scout around your area for such a business to see if you can get proven reliable machine for a reasonable price.

Reply to
Joanne

Noise is not a problem; our Schenk makes a lot more noise I guess, since it is all pneumatic.

As long as the quality is good, and the machine has little down time, it should be OK. But is this the case?

Reply to
Joost Egelie

I would fall into the 'hands off, it's crap' column as I have just sent back my second one - noisy, unreliable, contant thread breaks, poor quality control, bad stitching, the list goes on....

For not much more than what that piece of junk costs, we have ordered the new Happy Compact machine - made by one of the best names in commercial embroidery for the smaller shop market - 12 needle, 1000 spm, 12.5x12.5 max field, 88 lbs, rotary thread break sensors, card reader, USB connection, quiet and reliable with very nice stitch quality - starts at around 7500 US - see at

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Reply to
Scott - MyThreadBox S/W

Scott, could you tell us more about this machine. Do you feel it is the answer for the person who wants a dedicated embroidery machine but can't afford more than $10,000?

As a hobby, we have the Singer XL1000 which I think is a superb machine (after three years of use), but I would like to try one of the commercial machines. We can't afford to buy *wrong* however.

Our two daughters live in Vancouver, Wash. Is that close to you?

Regards Gord>I would fall into the 'hands off, it's crap' column as I have just

Reply to
Gordon

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