I got my SWF-1501T last Friday and had Topsail sportswear digitize some designs for me and sewed out all of them with great results on backing. One design in particular is for a left chest on Pima Cotton Golf shirts. Since Topsail is a professional company, and I am just a beginner I can only assume that the problem is on my end. The problem shows up when I sew out on the shirts. When laying down the underlay stitches, some of them loop and when the top stitches come back, the some of the underlay stitches poke out. Also with the small lettering, it kind of appears to fall into the shirt. I've tried adjusting the bobbin tension, and the top tension, with little effect. An H test looks good also.
For a period, I was also having trouble getting the needle to pick up the bobbin
thread, causing invisible stitches.
Like I said, the machine is only 1 week old.
Any suggestions?
__________________
Hard labor kills, make t-shirts instead.
Sounds like you need to adjust your tension both on the tread and bobbin.
Are you dealing with Mitch @ Topsail? I would call them and ask just i case, since they digitized the file they can offer some suggestions as to what you may need to tweak either in the file or the machine
your machine should have come pre-tensioned. you shouldn't have to do anything.
for the bobbin tension, just make sure you can do the yo-yo test by dropping the bobbin 1.5 inches before you put the thread on the pig tail.
removing and reinserting the bobbin should solve the problem with the bobbin thread coming through.
if your fabric is knit, use some solvy on top. that will keep the stitching from passing through or into the garment. Solvy Soluble Embroidery Topping
always test sew your design on a scrap of the same type of material before going to production and these surprises will go away.
your emb file should have come with instructions on the proper topping and stabilizer to use for the fabric you have chosen. you should follow those instructions also.
Thanks to you both. I talked to Mitch again and he reworked the design a little and it looks better. I also retensioned the bobbin and that helped as well. The only issue now is where there are some smaller pieces of the design, the underlay stitches are being pushed to the side and not being covered by the top stitches. Other than that, it looks good.
__________________
Hard labor kills, make t-shirts instead.
One thing that may help is to slow the speed down a little.
We run at 1200/spm for non-complex designs, 1000/spm for more detail, and as low as 500/spm for complex or small stitch areas and stiff caps. This has eliminated nearly all of our problems with stitch registration and thread breaks.
Also, you may need to use another layer of stabilizer underneath. On softer material, we use 2 layers under and solvy on top and it really makes the designs look good.
One thing that may help is to slow the speed down a little.
We run at 1200/spm for non-complex designs, 1000/spm for more detail, and as low as 500/spm for complex or small stitch areas and stiff caps. This has eliminated nearly all of our problems with stitch registration and thread breaks.
Also, you may need to use another layer of stabilizer underneath. On softer material, we use 2 layers under and solvy on top and it really makes the designs look good.
Do you hoop in the solvy or just lay it down on top? I would have thought that the extra backing would just make the shirt more uncomfortable. Have you ever heard of complaints from extra backing?
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Hard labor kills, make t-shirts instead.
We tried not hooping the solvy but it tends to get caught up in the needle that way so I just roll it out over the design area, hoop it and then cut the solvy off the role.
I have a shirt for me with 3 layers of stabilizer and I don't even notice it. You don't have to use the same stabilizer for each layer. You can use a softer one close to the skin and a stiffer one on the garment.
For Polo's and other knit shirts we use 2 layers. For wovens we use one layer and sometimes even a tear-away of the woven fabric is thick enough.
Also, make sure you use a sharp point needle for wovens and caps and a ball point for knits. It will make a lot of difference on the wovens.
It just seemed to me at first like that would cut into profit but if it creates a better product, I guess it's worth it. While I've got you, can you sew on patches with an embroidery machine? I figured that it wouldn't be worth it even if you could but thought I'd ask, just in case you know something I don't.
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Hard labor kills, make t-shirts instead.
Looping and invisible stitches 
