Brother Single Head: Model BES 1210 AC

[Suz]

Hi Embroidery People!

Anybody have one of these old Single heads?
Brother Model BES 1210 AC
She has a FDD - Floppy Disk Drive. I know, old! But hey, she works!

I love this old machine, I use it about every day. It does not do it all well, but does most of what makes me the most money very well!

Frustrating to me though, is the fact I don't find many who want to talk about this machine. I find lots of info on the other machines we own, which are both SWF compact machines.
But this Brother needs a couple Brothers and Sisters who know something!!!

Anyone? I'd be willing to share what I know if you are willing! I used to have a couple of embroidery repair CD's, but have loaned them out and didn't get them back.

I have a question from time to time on how to do something, which cannot be found in the manual.

Happy to share my secrets if you are too!

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I have a 114 page PDF instruction manual for the BES-1210 AC and BAS-416A (same manual actually).

It's been a long time since I've messed with any of the old floppy embroidery machines, so don't know if I would be really any help in that regard.

 

[Suz]

Good Morning Evan!

Thank you so much, I've got the original Instruction manual, so no problem there. Oh, and yes, the BAS-416 is same manual. I think the BAS-416 is 9 needle machine. Mine is 12.

I have no problems with the floppy drive. That's all good too, although slow as I mentioned.

The thing I'm trying to do is set a stop in the middle of a sew out. I was making files like that, but now can't get it to work. I have some designs that I need to sew for a couple thousand stitches, then stop so I can remove the hoop and load something, then re-load and keep sewing.

I can get it to work with my SWF machines, but not the Brother. Weird! I think it's a machine thing. I've got something set weird. Not sure what.

Wish there was a forum or somwhere with mostly Brother Machine users. But have not found one yet.

Thanks for trying to help! Have a great day!

I have a 114 page PDF instruction manual for the BES-1210 AC and BAS-416A (same manual actually).

It's been a long time since I've messed with any of the old floppy embroidery machines, so don't know if I would be really any help in that regard.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

The thing I'm trying to do is set a stop in the middle of a sew out. I was making files like that, but now can't get it to work. I have some designs that I need to sew for a couple thousand stitches, then stop so I can remove the hoop and load something, then re-load and keep sewing.

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly (brain is somewhat fried, which is easier to do the older that i get and it stays fried for longer periods of time), it's not reading your stop code to stop the machine for you to do something mid stitch out?

That typically is something that has gotten corrupt, usually within the file itself. Have you delete the file from the memory and then reload the same file? Have you edited any files after you inserted the stop code that could have over written the stop code? Sometimes that happens within Wilcom.

I have had some files that after having done 10 flawless stitchouts and then it's registration gets wonky and a simple reload fixes the problem (oh and this is within the same session, it's not turning off the machine and going elsewhere and turning it back on to resume or anything along those lines). Only happened once, but it has happened.

I find it funny that you are talking about stop codes. Just got done doing lace earrings (gotta love dog owners and their projects) with 3 stops, 4 colors so I could match lower thread to upper thread. Gotta love the animal lovers out there.

Wish there was a forum or somwhere with mostly Brother Machine users. But have not found one yet.

I do believe that there are forums for Brother users out there. Most though are for the PR series (and even Babylock since those are also made by Brother) as Brother is also pushing that machine over their true full fledge commercial line. They are decent machines that will handle a commercial settings, but not quite the same animal as the full fledge commercial machine either. Very much a hybrid.

 

[Suz]

Just to make sure I'm understanding correctly (brain is somewhat fried, which is easier to do the older that i get and it stays fried for longer periods of time), it's not reading your stop code to stop the machine for you to do something mid stitch out?

Ha Ha! Fried brain syndrome. But yes, it's not performing the stop as it previously did. It's an old file I've used thousands of times. Yes, it happens during the stitch out. I draw a few guidelines with running stitches right into my hooped backing. Then the command is to stop (It does not stop though). This is where I would normally load the previously hooped backing (with item to be embroidered) back into the machine and hit start again to complete the actual embroidery design.

My thinking is same, probably corrupt file. So, I've checked original file created in digitizing program to make certain stop is set where it should be. Save it again in the .dst format, or sew file. Then load back into the machine.

Same problem, no workie! Perhaps my computer hell is extending to my embroidery machines. Oh, frightening thought!

I have had some files that after having done 10 flawless stitchouts and then it's registration gets wonky and a simple reload fixes the problem (oh and this is within the same session, it's not turning off the machine and going elsewhere and turning it back on to resume or anything along those lines). Only happened once, but it has happened.

I find it funny that you are talking about stop codes. Just got done doing lace earrings (gotta love dog owners and their projects) with 3 stops, 4 colors so I could match lower thread to upper thread. Gotta love the animal lovers out there.


The Animal lovers! Haha! I love a big Tan Cat. But he does not get special ear-rings, he won't even take special treats. He's a pretty simple Simon. Lucky me! He is the best cat. All I have to do other than be his buddy is clean up an occasional mess when he eats more than he should. But he is lean and healthy. Again, lucky me. Have cared for sick animal we adopted for years in the past, it is a lot of work, but a good thing.


I do believe that there are forums for Brother users out there. Most though are for the PR series (and even Babylock since those are also made by Brother) as Brother is also pushing that machine over their true full fledge commercial line. They are decent machines that will handle a commercial settings, but not quite the same animal as the full fledge commercial machine either. Very much a hybrid.

Yeah, that is basically what I found for Brother... lots of PR owners, not many into the Commercial. A mechanic I used to go over this machine when I first got it said most of his work was with the PR machines and he raved about them. Still glad I got this old one. It's not too fussy, plows through my toughest stuff. I hope the card reader is not going bad.

Thanks for your response, much appreciated!

Have a wonderful day!

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Ha Ha! Fried brain syndrome. But yes, it's not performing the stop as it previously did. It's an old file I've used thousands of times. Yes, it happens during the stitch out. I draw a few guidelines with running stitches right into my hooped backing. Then the command is to stop (It does not stop though). This is where I would normally load the previously hooped backing (with item to be embroidered) back into the machine and hit start again to complete the actual embroidery design.

My thinking is same, probably corrupt file. So, I've checked original file created in digitizing program to make certain stop is set where it should be. Save it again in the .dst format, or sew file. Then load back into the machine.

Same problem, no workie! Perhaps my computer hell is extending to my embroidery machines. Oh, frightening thought!

That is possible. Did this also happen along the same time? I knew one store owner that when they brought in a file that they had digitized (not be me) into their software to add text, it was corrupting the file. Strange, but it does happen. Gotta love tech.

The Animal lovers! Haha! I love a big Tan Cat. But he does not get special ear-rings, he won't even take special treats. He's a pretty simple Simon. Lucky me! He is the best cat. All I have to do other than be his buddy is clean up an occasional mess when he eats more than he should. But he is lean and healthy. Again, lucky me. Have cared for sick animal we adopted for years in the past, it is a lot of work, but a good thing.

Oh, these earring are for the owners. I'll see if I can get pictures of them and post them. I just have a couple right now. One for a papillon owner and a mini Aussie.

Yeah, that is basically what I found for Brother... lots of PR owners, not many into the Commercial. A mechanic I used to go over this machine when I first got it said most of his work was with the PR machines and he raved about them. Still glad I got this old one. It's not too fussy, plows through my toughest stuff.

I hope the card reader is not going bad.

The PR series of machines are actually entry level commercial. High end consumer/entry level commercial. They really are good machines and can last if properly taken care of. I know some people think "entry level" and still think they are junk, but they really are nice machines, especially if mobility/space are a concern.

If the "brain" is going bad, might want to try here:

http://www.masis.com/

It all just depends on how much you want to have involved in this though.

 

[KSAR]

Brother BES 1210 AC stops on own.

That is possible. Did this also happen along the same time? I knew one store owner that when they brought in a file that they had digitized (not be me) into their software to add text, it was corrupting the file. Strange, but it does happen. Gotta love tech.




Oh, these earring are for the owners. I'll see if I can get pictures of them and post them. I just have a couple right now. One for a papillon owner and a mini Aussie.



The PR series of machines are actually entry level commercial. High end consumer/entry level commercial. They really are good machines and can last if properly taken care of. I know some people think "entry level" and still think they are junk, but they really are nice machines, especially if mobility/space are a concern.

If the "brain" is going bad, might want to try here:

http://www.masis.com/

It all just depends on how much you want to have involved in this though.

My Brother will stop sometimes right after a color change, then you press start and away it goes. My SWF with the same disk works like it should. Several times my SWf would read the disk just fine and the Brother says disk error. Sounds like we both may have problems with floppy drives.

 

[SightLine]

I'll say this much.... if you think the floppy drive is going bad. Before you go and spend $100+ on some "special" replacement floppy drive, hop eon eBay and buy and off the shelf generic floppy drive for $10 and give it a try first. While there are some machines that have something special or unusual about the floppy drive, I have found that realistically there is nothing special at all about it. I've replaced the one on our SWF 4 head and it works just fine. I personally do not really even thing (for the incredibly tiny embroidery files) that getting a stitch file from a computer to the machine on a floppy disk is really even all that slow. Hardly any slower than using a thumb drive or compact flash card.

Evan knows his stuff on all these too. We have one of the Brother (Babylock) PR-600 single heads that we started into embroider with. Works great and still does. We then added an older 4 head SWF which also still works great. Sure the SWF does not have the fancy color screen and don't get me wrong, that is nice and I'd love to have it but that would be a machine that would easily cost me 5 grand more (for a used one). That being said - I've looked very very close at the control box on our SWF and am working on a project to eventually replace it with a custom solution that will be able to run Windows and connect to our network. Internally the SWF control box runs DOS and simply loads a single smallish program which is the machines operating system. Inside the control box is a very simple SBC (single board computer) with a PC104 slot. The specs on the computer are awful, its an old 40 MHz 386 with a half a MB of ram. Much more modern SBC's can be had with a PC104 connector (needed for the machines proprietary control board) and I already have one. Just going to take a lot of tinkering and experimenting with the SWF operating program to determine what its needs are in loading and my hope is I will be able to at least have it run Windows XP with the machine program running in a true DOS window. Coleman has actually already done this exact thing! http://colmanandcompany.com/OP-Box_SWF-AB.html However they want an extraordinary amount of money for it. If you shop it around that is literally less than about $600 worth of parts, less if you buy used stuff. I cannot fault them though, it takes a lot of skill, trial and error, and effort to get it all together in a way that will work. They are also just loading the operating program from a much newer model machine (not trying to give it the ability to alt-tab to Windows or anything).

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I'll say this much.... if you think the floppy drive is going bad. Before you go and spend $100+ on some "special" replacement floppy drive, hop eon eBay and buy and off the shelf generic floppy drive for $10 and give it a try first. While there are some machines that have something special or unusual about the floppy drive, I have found that realistically there is nothing special at all about it. I've replaced the one on our SWF 4 head and it works just fine. I personally do not really even thing (for the incredibly tiny embroidery files) that getting a stitch file from a computer to the machine on a floppy disk is really even all that slow. Hardly any slower than using a thumb drive or compact flash card.

It's not, nor do we really need the gigs that come with usb sticks now for simple files. If you were to have your PR 600 hooked directly up to the computer, it will read as an external drive and it only has like 1mb (maybe a few tenths more). That will actually hold quite a few files on average, especially logo crest files that are maybe 20 kb each on the average. Now your larger full backs might actually be at 100 kb, but that does depend on the design.

My Brother will stop sometimes right after a color change, then you press start and away it goes. My SWF with the same disk works like it should. Several times my SWf would read the disk just fine and the Brother says disk error. Sounds like we both may have problems with floppy drives.

Have you tried to see if there was an issue with the disk itself first? I've had some disks that will read fine on some machines that won't on others. Also, did you reload the pattern onto the floppy as well? Bare in mind, some machines actually do write files to the source device (be it a floppy, CF card, or USB stick) and that might have gotten corrupted as well, which might cause a corruption error. I know my Barudan writes picture files to the CF cards and those can get corrupted (rare but it can happen).

 

[Suz]

Hello Phil,

Just noticed your post here, although it's been a while since you made it. Anyhow, since it's your first post and you are also from WA State, HI NEIGHBOR! Thank you for sharing.

My Brother will stop sometimes right after a color change, then you press start and away it goes. My SWF with the same disk works like it should. Several times my SWf would read the disk just fine and the Brother says disk error. Sounds like we both may have problems with floppy drives.

 

[Suz]

Sightline,

Don't know if you will read this now, I just revisited this thread. Yes, Evan knows his stuff. He is also very kind and very helpful! Thank you for you input Sightline. Thank you for your advice about the floppy drive, it confirmed my thoughts about purchasing on Ebay. Found some for $20.00 or so, direct from Mfr. in China. Gotta make sure it matches with the slot on my machine, I will eventually buy one. Just wanna get the right one. I told myself a while ago that I would not be paying a tech hundreds to install a flippin floppy. LOL! Gonna do that myself if there is any Technical skill in me!

I'll say this much.... if you think the floppy drive is going bad. Before you go and spend $100+ on some "special" replacement floppy drive, hop eon eBay and buy and off the shelf generic floppy drive for $10 and give it a try first. While there are some machines that have something special or unusual about the floppy drive, I have found that realistically there is nothing special at all about it. I've replaced the one on our SWF 4 head and it works just fine. I personally do not really even thing (for the incredibly tiny embroidery files) that getting a stitch file from a computer to the machine on a floppy disk is really even all that slow. Hardly any slower than using a thumb drive or compact flash card.

Evan knows his stuff on all these too. We have one of the Brother (Babylock) PR-600 single heads that we started into embroider with. Works great and still does. We then added an older 4 head SWF which also still works great. Sure the SWF does not have the fancy color screen and don't get me wrong, that is nice and I'd love to have it but that would be a machine that would easily cost me 5 grand more (for a used one). That being said - I've looked very very close at the control box on our SWF and am working on a project to eventually replace it with a custom solution that will be able to run Windows and connect to our network. Internally the SWF control box runs DOS and simply loads a single smallish program which is the machines operating system. Inside the control box is a very simple SBC (single board computer) with a PC104 slot. The specs on the computer are awful, its an old 40 MHz 386 with a half a MB of ram. Much more modern SBC's can be had with a PC104 connector (needed for the machines proprietary control board) and I already have one. Just going to take a lot of tinkering and experimenting with the SWF operating program to determine what its needs are in loading and my hope is I will be able to at least have it run Windows XP with the machine program running in a true DOS window. Coleman has actually already done this exact thing! http://colmanandcompany.com/OP-Box_SWF-AB.html However they want an extraordinary amount of money for it. If you shop it around that is literally less than about $600 worth of parts, less if you buy used stuff. I cannot fault them though, it takes a lot of skill, trial and error, and effort to get it all together in a way that will work. They are also just loading the operating program from a much newer model machine (not trying to give it the ability to alt-tab to Windows or anything).

 

[KSAR]

Sightline,

Don't know if you will read this now, I just revisited this thread. Yes, Evan knows his stuff. He is also very kind and very helpful! Thank you for you input Sightline. Thank you for your advice about the floppy drive, it confirmed my thoughts about purchasing on Ebay. Found some for $20.00 or so, direct from Mfr. in China. Gotta make sure it matches with the slot on my machine, I will eventually buy one. Just wanna get the right one. I told myself a while ago that I would not be paying a tech hundreds to install a flippin floppy. LOL! Gonna do that myself if there is any Technical skill in me!

My Brother BES 1210AC came with a Teac FD235HF-A579 floppy drive. From reading on the internet there are 5 different versions of it. From what I've been reading also the jumpers need to be set a certain way to make it work. I tried a Samsung and a Alps drive both said file error. They both worked fine in the computer. I put the original back in the machine and it would read files from disk OK. May be easier to go the USB route.

 

[Bullwinkle]

Old FDD-ran Embroidery Machines

Hi Embroidery People!

Anybody have one of these old Single heads?
Brother Model BES 1210 AC
She has a FDD - Floppy Disk Drive. I know, old! But hey, she works!

I love this old machine, I use it about every day. It does not do it all well, but does most of what makes me the most money very well!

Frustrating to me though, is the fact I don't find many who want to talk about this machine. I find lots of info on the other machines we own, which are both SWF compact machines.
But this Brother needs a couple Brothers and Sisters who know something!!!

Anyone? I'd be willing to share what I know if you are willing! I used to have a couple of embroidery repair CD's, but have loaned them out and didn't get them back.

I have a question from time to time on how to do something, which cannot be found in the manual.

Happy to share my secrets if you are too!

We have a single-head 9-needle Brother (BAS416), a single-head 6-needle SWF, and a 4-head 12-needle Tajima - ALL are floppy drive machines and they all run fine. We also have a 12-needle Prodigy that uses a floppy drive. (Haven't learned to use that one yet, it is pretty sophisticated compared to the rest.) We use the SWF for hats only - it is left set up for it and we rarely have a hat design over 6 colors (even with 60 weight thread on it) - saves us a lot of time for short runs of hats. We have been in business for 8 years. We bought the biz from a lady that had been running it for over 12 years (kept the biz name) and the Brother and the Tajima came with the business. My wife does the customer service end of it and does the digitizing. (She also has a CAD drafting service for commercial electrical design.) I run all of the garments so I have plenty of experience with these older machines. I do all of the repairs/maintenance myself so I can help with questions if you are trying to follow the manuals and don't understand. Would be happy to help.

Sincerely,
Marvin & Cheryl Gattis
Sally's Embroidery & Monogramming, LLC
Portland, Oregon

 

[Suz]

KSAR,
Thanks for the info! Don't you love your BES 1210AC?? A solid machine! At least mine has been. Stomps through everything without complaining, as long as I have maintained it. Thanks for sharing your information. I did happen to get a couple of old boxes of floppy disks (old new stock) that we can use on that old Brother. Also, have a couple of external floppy disk readers for my computers that work fine. Just hopefully the embroidery machine floppy reader will never crash. If it does, for sure would have to just convert over to USB, which is the plan anyway. Those old floppies are slow, aren't they? Glad you got your original disk reader back in and working!
Thanks again!

My Brother BES 1210AC came with a Teac FD235HF-A579 floppy drive. From reading on the internet there are 5 different versions of it. From what I've been reading also the jumpers need to be set a certain way to make it work. I tried a Samsung and a Alps drive both said file error. They both worked fine in the computer. I put the original back in the machine and it would read files from disk OK. May be easier to go the USB route.

 

[Suz]

Hi Marvin,

Very nice of you to offer to help, much appreciated! Yes, we have the option of the floppy or USB with our 6-needle and 15-needle SWF's, that is nice. That way, I can use a floppy prepared for the Brother and throw it in the SWF. So, that does work okay. Decided to just accept the old floppy disks for now, as you say, they are working fine. As mentioned, found a couple boxes of new (old stock) floppies and now I have plenty of disks. Old, but they do work.

I hit a hoop a hoop recently on one of the SWF's, yikes!!! Thought I broke the reciprocator, but it may be okay. I am able to get the head to move to the different needle positions, which should indidcate that the reciprocator is okay. But I think there is another part (that holds the reciprocator in place) and I forget the name of it, but it slips over the shaft. I think it is distorted, so we have ordered a new part. Only $8.00 part, so much cheaper than a reciprocator. When it gets here, will have to take that machine apart again and try to put it back together. Fun fun!

We have a single-head 9-needle Brother (BAS416), a single-head 6-needle SWF, and a 4-head 12-needle Tajima - ALL are floppy drive machines and they all run fine....

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Thanks for the info! Don't you love your BES 1210AC?? A solid machine! At least mine has been. Stomps through everything without complaining, as long as I have maintained it.

Brothers, even their PR series (yes, I'm including those for various reasons) are good machines. They all have their place, I do think they get a bad rap though with some things. We still have 2 PRs along with a few bridge Barudan machines and even those hold their own in quality along with the Barudans.

About the only thing that I don't like with Brother and it has nothing to do with their machines, is that they are big in promoting auto conversion (no such thing as auto digitizing in my mind) and the "business in a box" model. I cringe with both of those and they are only getting worse.

 

[Suz]

What? Can't you just run it through that little program thingie? Just press a button? Haha. I do get asked this often, in regards to digitizing and also graphics. This morning, it was about a low quality bitmap.

Brothers, even their PR series (yes, I'm including those for various reasons) are good machines. They all have their place, I do think they get a bad rap though with some things. We still have 2 PRs along with a few bridge Barudan machines and even those hold their own in quality along with the Barudans.

About the only thing that I don't like with Brother and it has nothing to do with their machines, is that they are big in promoting auto conversion (no such thing as auto digitizing in my mind) and the "business in a box" model. I cringe with both of those and they are only getting worse.