Is the Melco EMT16X right for you? 

Melco builds great machines, they always did. The problem is not the machines, but the person operating them, or the lack of understanding/knowledge that is required to produce good embroidery. I work with most commercial embroidery machine brands, older and newer models. And most of the times i had to do lots of adjustments, retro fitting, updates and modifications to the machines and attachments to get a crisp stitching. Remember that sales reps, the majority of them never owned an embroidery machine or have experience running them. What kind of advice do you expect to get from them? If you decide to get into this industry, before investing in state of the art equipment or technology make sure you will have someone with the expertise to run them. Cheers!!!

I have been doing quite a bit of research lately, and I would look into ZSK or Tajima. Those ZSK machines are built like a tank and are fast.Hope things work out for you.

I just designed and built a new hat hoop for my MELCO XT. It puts the hat right on top of the needle plate and prevents flagging. I am doing a 50 hat order on Richardson 112 Haven't broken a needle yet. I did replace the needle that is doing the color over the seam with an 80/12 and have had much better luck with it. I wasn't breaking needles, but thread. good luck

I run two single head Barudan Pro 3’s, messing up one hat or less per hundred is on par for Richardson 112’s. I recently got my Bluetooth manager set up which makes file transfer much easier than using a thumb drive. Some complex designs take two or three tweaks before I share that with the second machine for production. I have some designs that I have tweaked to run great on a Richardson, but would look terrible on a flat. My guess is that you will miss the ease of data transfer the most when you leave Melco. Keep up the grind

I run 3 melcos. If your machines are in spec according Mark, your problem is 100% hooping. You need to get your center seam flat or you’re going to keep breaking needles and that’s true for any machine. We also run an 8 head Ricoma. Once we figured out how to hoop 112s correctly, trashing one has become a very rare occurrence, like maybe 1/300. We also stopped using backing with the 112s and that helped with clean up. Don’t give up on your melcos just yet.

I've heard the same about Melco. I currently have 2 older Happy machines and love them but need to upgrade to take it to the next level, not near your level but running one hat on a single head is brutal when you get big orders. Love the honestly and the videos you put out. Also love your shop! MASSIVE!!!! Maybe a shop tour video in the future

Customer service when you call is good. I have issues with my machine as well. My rep is difficult to deal with, the Fb groups are terrible as they rather harp on your training or lack there of rather than help most of the time. Mostly a group of trainers stressing their paid importance like car salesman for a machine that is supposed to be an easier machine than others. I have been hesitant on purchasing another and digging a bigger hole. We are going to the open house to see if it changes our opinions.

Same issues . Across the crown, breaks everytime! Ver consistent with the area of stitching. I have a EMT16x, go through 10-12 needles and 6 hats every order. Spent more time trying to cancel out all possibilities - earlier maintenance, trying different designers, trying different style caps, but unfortunately, same results. Spoke to many melco Customer care reps, and I did get different answers. Customer care is not even open on weekends, so i suggest not to work on your orders on the weekends. Everytime I ran the emt16x, I’m on the phone with customer care.. Crazy part, I was offered a return, but I needed to pay 3k for my refund. Told sales rep I could not come up with money right away. 2 months later, and little activity on the machine ( I was working with melco rep 1 on 1 to try and fix issue ), Melco could not keep their word on the refund, mind u, the offer of refund did not have a expiration date. Terrible company . Terrible service, terrible product. Good luck in your adventure . Just to ease your pain, I am in the same situation as you, so you are not alone.

i also heard bad things about melco. that sucks because you invested in a bunch of them. i follow another guy who has a print shop at his house and he bought 1 melco like yours and he had problems with it too and he then purchased a tajima that has self auto tensioning and thats legit but it does cost like 20 or 30k from what i was told for that machine when i called tajima. expensive vs these but i guess consistency is key for large production. But you are saying that theses melcos are perfect for flats like sweaters and shirts but just not for hats? i was tempted to buy one for sweaters and sweatpants to test the waters but damn this makes me not want to give it a try.

I got a 95% refund of the 3 Melco's I had, had them for a month, problems problem's. Made the decision to send them back before it was too late. Tajima or Barudan or nothing,

You shouldn't have to go to a forum to ask how to use the machine. Melco should be taking care of your questions. I don't understand your reasoning to ask random people. Personally, I think if you're embroidering on thick material, I don't think you need stabilizer. Maybe that would take the thickness out of your hats or hats without the seam in the front.