# How many needles do you really need?



## squeed (Dec 22, 2010)

I am looking to buy my first single head embroidery machine. With my budget of less than $3,000 my only options seem to be the 6 needle Melco or the 10 needle Melco. I have 2 questions.

1. How many needles do you need, so that you don't have to change threads for a good 90% of what you will be doing?

2. How are these Melco machines?

-S


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## ikkuh (Apr 8, 2010)

I own a couple of pr-620's (6 needle brother) and they are marvelous! real workhorses, and 6 colours are often plenty!


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## binki (Jul 16, 2006)

We have a single head 15 needle and we have 7 set up with sharps and 8 with ball points so we dont have to change needles when we change fabrics. We keep a standard set of threads, wht/blk/red/green/blue/yellow on each side so it makes it easy to set up a job without too much thinking. 

Another option is to have several needles with the same thread so if you have a break you just do a color change to another needle with the same color and go on. This speeds things up.


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## lizziemaxine (Nov 14, 2007)

If you are doing corporate logos then you will probably be fine with 6 or 10 needles. I have a Barudan single-head, 15 needle machine and at times use all 15 needles, but on average it is 3-5 needles at one time.


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## draig (Jul 29, 2007)

I have the six needle PR600. One of the logos I do regularly has 7 colours, you can get quite adept at changing for the extra colour though. Yes there are times when I wish I had more, but 6 is better than 1 

Sharon


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## tfalk (Apr 3, 2008)

I have 2 PR600 6 needle machines and a 15 needle SWF. The 6 needle machines are great as long as you regularly use 6 or less colors. Once you start regularly needing more than 6 colors, constantly rethreading gets old really quickly, especially if you get an order for multiple items. 

For the 15 needle machines, you can either keep half with sharps and half with ball points as mentioned above or keep the inner needles with your most common colors and use the outer needles for the ones that change frequently. Not sure about some of the other machines, I do the inside/outside because the outer needles are much easier to reach and rethread than the inner needles. I also keep 1 needle with a 65/9 needle for 50/60 weight thread for fine detail.


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## mesewsatx (Aug 4, 2007)

I have the exact same set-up 2 PR600 and 15needle SWF. While the brother's are great they are so SLOW compared to the SWF. When the PR 650's give up the ghost I will buy another commercial machine with more than 6 colors.


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## krowmark (Dec 6, 2010)

We have always used Amaya embroidery machines. They all have 16 needles, we find we almost never have to change threads (unless they break of course) as 16 colours is usually enough.


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## skits (Jun 24, 2009)

go for 10 needle


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## Louie2010 (Feb 26, 2010)

> "How many needles do you need, so that you don't have to change threads for a good 90% of what you will be doing?"


I guess that really depends on your customers. For myself I have a PR-650 with 6 needles and I can say comfortably that I don't need more for 90% of what I do.


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## jean518 (Sep 23, 2009)

I am not sure you can get a multi needle for 3000. Might find a used one for that. You mentioned a couple of models so I guess those go for less. I have not looked for a while. I purchased a 6 needle many years ago for about double that. I just purchased a 10 needle and you would need to put a 1 in front of that 3000 for that one. Good luck in your search. I have the Babylock version of the 6 needle and 10 needle. Love the 10 needle. I do not do major production with them but have found them to be workhorses. I know there are some 6 needles being sold by those wanting to go to the 10 needle machines. I think most of them are going for more than 3000 but not sure. I opted to keep mine.


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