# Brother BR-1201B-AC parts/supplies?



## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

Edit: Title should be BE-1201B-AC whoops.

Finally snagged our first "industrial" embroidery machine -- picked it up locally from someone who happens to be the local tech for it. It's an old machine but fully refurbished, with warranty and training.

I know this machine is no longer official supported, but I am curious what people are doing for supplies. From what I can tell most of the items are "standard" enough -- M class prewound bobbins, the needles appear standard, and the presser feet look standard although the manual doesn't discuss part numbers or replacement numbers.

This is just a "test product" to see if I should consider expanding into embroidery plus my mom lives in the area and is retired and would love some extra work (she'd been a fashion designer for over 50 years).

Hoping to get the machine rolling over the next year and figure that should give me enough experience to decide if I should go with a new 6 head real industrial workhorse.

Digitizing doesn't seem as tricky as I was worried it would be. Of course I need to actually embroider those digitized designs, but the software I tried were all pretty straight forward.

Edit: Should mention I'm in the Midwest but have no issue importing if quality is worth doing so.


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## 539162 (Jun 12, 2015)

Sew Many Parts has a pretty good amount of supplies. They are in Ohio. Also look on Brother's site. They still have parts for this machine as well. I also recommend the coats bobbins for the Brother. Is your bobbin case/hook a M or L?


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## LTPEMB (Jul 10, 2015)

Brothermall2 and SewManyParts best resource. I have brother machines and loath them. And as someone who entered embroidery only 2 years ago here is my advice for understanding embroidery. 

1. 90% of all your problems are bad files, or more precisely files not made for that material.
2. 5% of your problems will be caused by damage/additional wear and tear caused by bad files.
3. 4% will be by user error. 
4. 1% Actual machine wear and tear, or timing issues. 

Read Read Read Read Read. Read user manuals, information sheets, tips and tricks online ect. 

Good luck. Brother industrial embroidery machines are tricky, evil, but effective.


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

EmbroidTek said:


> Sew Many Parts has a pretty good amount of supplies. They are in Ohio. Also look on Brother's site. They still have parts for this machine as well. I also recommend the coats bobbins for the Brother. Is your bobbin case/hook a M or L?


It's an M style -- I think I'm going to order some Fil-Tec Magna Glide bobbins for it tomorrow. I'll check Sew Many Parts tonight, thanks!


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

LTPEMB said:


> Brothermall2 and SewManyParts best resource. I have brother machines and loath them. And as someone who entered embroidery only 2 years ago here is my advice for understanding embroidery.
> 
> 1. 90% of all your problems are bad files, or more precisely files not made for that material.
> 2. 5% of your problems will be caused by damage/additional wear and tear caused by bad files.
> ...



Appreciate the reply -- I'm not expecting any first embroidery machine to be happy songs and dances, but the price on this one was right, the tech is within biking distance, and the machine is totally refurbished so I'm hoping for more good than bad luck.

Since most of our income is DTG, I'm not expecting to make money on embroidery -- I just want to keep my retired mom busy a few days a week, and be able to do those 1-offs or 5-offs that customers have been begging for over the past decade. Even if the machine isn't that modern, I expect I'll be able to do those short run jobs we've been passing on for a decade.

I bought digitizing software a few years ago to learn, so I still have that license and it isn't all that bad -- I've digitized a few designs and am going to try a test embroider this week once my thread comes.


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## Pyroshouse (Mar 4, 2008)

If the machine is good condition, then I would look at you files. My brother 1201 never had problems unless the file had small stitches. If you look under your settings you should find a setting to remove small stitches and it will give you a value I always with with 7 instead of 5 which is what wilcom would default to. Many times I would see 80 to 250 small stitches removed. Everyone of those little bastards was a rats nest waiting to happen. The second thing I do on all my machines is once a day usually first thing I run a test pattern just satin lines 1/3 of inch wide and 3 inches long one per needle. Flip it over and you know exactly what your tension is doing and can adjust. Oil everything that the book says to oil. daily means 8 hours of run time weekly means 40 hours. Bobbin Rotary Hook should be done every time you change the bobbin or twice daily. So small stitches, oil, check for burrs on the bobbin and hook area, run the test and blow out the machine every morning you are running. I run the check after I oil so the excess goes on the test pattern BTW. Chin up it easy they just have quarks.


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

Amazing info, thanks! We tried our first embroider yesterday and everything moved as expected. Broken thread every 50 stitches but I just got fresh Madeira thread today so I'm going to try that Monday. Madeira has a warehouse just down the street (joy!) and their pricing is reasonable for the convenience.


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## treefox2118 (Sep 23, 2010)

Pyroshouse said:


> If you look under your settings you should find a setting to remove small stitches and it will give you a value I always with with 7 instead of 5 which is what wilcom would default to. Many times I would see 80 to 250 small stitches removed.


Is this feature/setting something only Wilcom offers? I only have PE-DESIGN and looked through the software and the manual and didn't come across the "remove small stitches" option (or anything similar to it).

Don't want to swallow the Wilcom software price until I have to!


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## 539162 (Jun 12, 2015)

treefox2118 said:


> Is this feature/setting something only Wilcom offers? I only have PE-DESIGN and looked through the software and the manual and didn't come across the "remove small stitches" option (or anything similar to it).
> 
> Don't want to swallow the Wilcom software price until I have to!


Wilcom is cheaper as long as you have software to trade in actually. So you could get Wilcom if you trade in the PE Design


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## LTPEMB (Jul 10, 2015)

Call Wilcom around march or november and they have insanely good trade in sales. I have Embroidery Studio e3 and was the best investment i ever made. I still have 3 more pieces of software i can trade in eventually and a copy of decostudio e2 that i can upgrade and i fully intend to in the future... (the previous owner bought a bunch of software but never the good stuff for some reason) but I've learned so much just from experimenting with the software.


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## Dean Roscoe (Dec 11, 2015)

A great feature of the 1201 is the ability to run jumbo bobbins so make sure you are using those.

The machine is showing it's age now, it's only has 12 needles and limited connectivity options but it's a workhorse.

Take the lid off and vacuum the dust off the fans and control boards, this will help prevent overheating. Very important because these boards will become harder and harder to source. Other common problems are the needle bar rubbers which should be replaced on the next service along with the usual stuff like the knives etc.


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## brembroidery (Aug 30, 2014)

Axiom America has parts service etc to keep it going and find u any part u they can rebuild boards etc u need stitch it international are really good about finding parts too


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## Pyroshouse (Mar 4, 2008)

treefox2118 said:


> Is this feature/setting something only Wilcom offers? I only have PE-DESIGN and looked through the software and the manual and didn't come across the "remove small stitches" option (or anything similar to it).
> 
> Don't want to swallow the Wilcom software price until I have to!


Just letting you know Wilcom is on sale right now just got a trade quote of 1700, for embroidery studio. And they will take it in three payments. So jump on it now!


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