Brother Entrepreneur PR-655

[im_mcguire]

Ok. So I have a line on a used Brother PR-655 with a bunch of attachments. This would. E my first step into embroidery, and I know more heads is great, but at this point I would be buying the machine to "learn" and do very small jobs on.
My question is, has anyone here used this, or know any reason this wouldn't be a ok started machine?

Thanks for any help.

[mk162]

I guess it all depends on price.  Personally, I wouldn't do it.  6 needles is not many.  Also, if it's anything like the PR600 most of the gears are small and plastic.  Our tech CONSTANTLY complains about these things.

[Gilligan]

I have one.

I was in the exact same boat as you (though I did buy new).

If I was doing it all over again, I would have bought a commercial machine over the Brother.

Everyone told me this... I didn't listen.  I thought I'd be getting more hand holding and it would be easier to learn on.  All phooey!

People said, trims would be so much faster.  I thought... how much faster can a trim be?  We have an SWF 1501c now and let me tell you, night and day difference.  Then they say Baraudens are even faster than the SWF.

For the money, you can get a commercial machine.... do it.  There is NOTHING that the brother offers you that would make you think "so glad I went this route".

[mk162]

Barudans are hella faster than the SWF's, and they sew better too.  It took us 2 other machines before finally getting a Barudan, now I probably won't buy anything else.

[GraphicDisorder]

Get a commercial machine, even if you decide its not for you it will be easier to sell.  SWF is a good entry level commercial machine. Granted a Barudan or Tajima would be ideal by far but come at a premium.

I wouldn't buy anything but a Barudan or Tajima knowing what I know now.

[Gilligan]

I'll respectfully (as I can ) disagree... the brother will be easy to sell as well.  They seem to hold value pretty well.  I still agree that you should buy commercial... but honestly, it might be easier to sell the "home" model vs a commercial.

[Doug B]

  No offense intended, but that is a toy. You wouldn't buy a shirt setup from an info-mercial
on a Saturday morning cartoon show at Christmas time, would you? If you want to learn,
get a real one. At least you will have a head start when you get into running a multi-head,
digitizing, maintenance, repair, etc.

[im_mcguire]

I appreciate all of the replies on this.  I really am going in blind on embroidery, and like I sad, I will only be using this to start for low qty stuff to learn on.  But as I learned with screen printing equipment, you get what you pay for, and I dont think embroidery is any different. 
I do want to get into embroidery commercially, and I think I will hold out to find something a little more commercial.
Thanks!

[Denis Kolar]

Barudan or Tajima, no particular order for those two.
If you are looking for a compact single head, also you can look into Toyota 9000 or 9100 (made by Tajima). They are not made any more, but you can still find some in great shape that will last you a long time. Parts are pretty much the same as in Tajima Neo and Neo2.