Where to buy a quality machine with a Efka servo?

[ruinbliss]

Hi  everyone, I have been reading a lot of the information on this forum pertaining to leatherworking and leatherworking sewing machine's. There is a phenomenal amount of information dating back from 2010 or before so I try to get the most recent as I could when I was looking for the machines that might interest me.

My question is simple, where is the best place for me to get a leather sewing machine that will let me use the correct type of leather for knife sheaths  I want to start with a top machine with  A pro Efka servo motor  

Next question is: Out of this group, Cowboy, Cobra, Techshu, or Adler, (205-?  Was mentioned on  this forum ) , what do you pros think about this choice.

I am a beginner, and disabled, so I cant even consider starting by hand.                  I would need a knowledgeable seller to set it up and offer support                                 I have a rotary three phase converter, so if it is a much better deal to go that route, that is doable                                      Thanks in advance for any information 

ruinbliss

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2016 by ruinbliss
Spelling

[mikesc]

Without knowing where you are ( you put "everywhere" in your profile to the left there ) , anyone is going to find it very very difficult to suggest somewhere for you to buy one ( or any machine for that matter ) and to have support available from the dealer..

Edited June 20, 2016 by mikesc

[Kohlrausch]

6 hours ago, ruinbliss said:

I am a beginner, and disabled, so I cant even consider starting by hand.       

 

Hi,

in this case I would buy local and base the decision on what is available locally.

Greets

Ralf C.

[Northmount]

OP appears to be from the New York area according to his IP address.

Tom

 

[Uwe]

It's hard to make suggestions without knowing what physical limitations we need to consider. Some systems can be adapted with hand controls for folks who can't operate a foot pedal. If manual dexterity is limited, certain controls can be shifted to leg/foot actuators, to allow for one-handed operation, etc. 

It boils down to finding somebody who's willing to put together a workstation customized for your needs. Any outfit that will only drop boxes at your doorstep is not really a good candidate. Once you find somebody local to put it all together, have them help you choose the pieces based on your intended use. Efka motors are great for many applications, but they may not be a good choice for what you're trying to do.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Uwe

[ruinbliss]

5 hours ago, northmount said:

OP appears to be from the New York area according to his IP address.

Tom

 

Thanks for the replies, sorry about no location

Nassau county, NY

MY main disability is my thumbs and wrists, as well as spinal. 

Sitting down is better than only standing. 

Having an  option to either sit high or sit low would be very good to have. 

For knife sheaths and thick strong webbing and leather for making a belt with support holder for a landscapers pole saw and clipper. 

Am I better off waiting for an older (80's) machine, that has been upgraded with a efka motor, as long as the base machine Will have the ability and the range of needles and the proper thread for the projects that I may encounter.

 Any machine that I purchase I Will want it to have the ability and the range of needles and the proper thread for the projects that I may encounter.

 I always overbuilt and or purchased a machine that is much greater with its abilities that I need at the present time.  that being said I also want to make sure that as a beginner I am not purchasing a machine that I simply will not be able to operate due to a steep learning curve. 

Any place to recommend, or should I start with Toledo, Ohio?

Thanks,

ruinbliss

[CowboyBob]

 

Yes,Toledo sounds like a good place to  start.(LOL)With the motor  & speed reducer we use you can go as slow as you want & even position the needle up or w/o much problem.I just made this video & ran the machine w/o ever touching the handwheel.This is a brand new machine that will loosen up in time & spin alittle easier once it gets broken in.

IMG_2224 (2).MOV

[ruinbliss]

Thanks for your reply, the  link that you provided does not seem to be working or Woodley's not on my iPhone 

Thanks

[Hockeymender]

Ditto, I can't get the video link to work as well. 

[brmax]

It worked here, after I signed in

The classifieds here on the board are some good places to look for machinery also, just no one within 700 miles of me has used items : (  at the time I'm lookin.

You will need a reducer so a decent servo is needed, I wish for an efka but not so much need of that production setup imo.

have a good day

Floyd

 

The internet explorer pops up asking me if open or download I just hit the open, but I still like the ole ie

Edited June 21, 2016 by brmax

[mikesc]

It isn't a link, it is downloadable video..Hope Bob doesn't mind I rotated it ( it was sideways on ) so it is easier to watch..

Had to crop it a lot after the rotation to get it past the1.4mb limit here ( apparently Bob can upload bigger files than I can his was 4.3mb )..it will play on VLC player or similar.

 

BOBS VIDEO ROTATED.mp4

Edited June 21, 2016 by mikesc

[Northmount]

My iPad doesn't like either file, but my PC has no problems with them.

Tom

 

[CowboyBob]

IDK what's wrong but the vid plays on my old computer w/windows 8?And it's upright?

Here's a shorter vid.

IMG_2229 (1).MOV

Edited June 21, 2016 by CowboyBob

[Tulsaman]

Plays on my win 7..fine.. I do use an aftermarket mov player..

 

[Hockeymender]

Same here as stated by Northmount, iPads cannot play this type of video. Got it to work fine on my PC.

 

[Wizcrafts]

Bob's movie is in the .mov format. I use Windows 10 and when I clicked on the file, it offered to play it in an app called "TwinUi" - which is a built-in Win10 Movie and TV player. In previous OS's, I would have used the Quicktime Alternative from Free-codecs.com.

 

[mikesc]

<aside >The original encoding is h264 in a .mov ( which one would think would "just work" with apple in an ipad, as they are behind both .mov and h264 )..it plays OK in your computer Bob, because your system is reading the header that tells it which way up you took it ( apple gear ? )..When I tried to recode it as a smaller h264 ( actually an mpeg ' avc ) which is the same thing, I could do so, but I could not get it small enough to be uploadable here ( best i could get was a compression to 1.5 mb , below that it was too "lossy" )..so I switched it to mp4 ( which most systems can read "native"..I could have wrapped it in an mkv, which again most systems can read "native"..VLC player reads almost anything on almost any platform, and it is free and open source ) ..Video is always a bit of a crapshoot though..and worse  since MS removed the media player in win10 ( I don't have win10, I did , I was one of the testers, but as MS decided to ignore all our input, and make crippled spyware that doesn't like many expensive programs or a lot of hardware configurations ) I wiped it of the machines it was on and put back win7 ulti or linux..

life is too short to mess with win10, and my win7 installs are airgapped from the web, because again life is too short to leave a win box on the web..I have one xp machine that is allowed to talk to the web because it has software that needs to authenticate it's licence every 6 months..and another win7 box that has software with a similar need..and all "updates" to win10 are blocked off..Linux is not invulnerable..but it is so much easier to keep secure, and anyone can see exactly what is in the system, and what it is doing,  open source software has everything anyone could need except the gamers who want directx12..and for them there is open GL etc..:)..and it doesn't have the worry that some skiddie can own it like MS systems have, or that MS can brick it with a bad update, or that they are in your files and sending things back to the mother ship..( try running wireshark on a win10 box, it will open your eyes just how much win10 talks to MS's servers, even when it is ostensibly doing nothing ) you cant block all telemetry in windows, even MS admits this..and since safe harbor is no more, as a business in the EU any of us cannot legally send customer data outside due to privacy laws, so we cannot let MS ( or anyone ) read our hard drives and files..

</aside> 

Edited June 21, 2016 by mikesc

[Uwe]

Just upload videos to youtube and avoid all these system specific issues. That's one of the reasons youtube is so popular - it just works on nearly every device. Mark the video "unlisted" if you only want close, personal friends to know you take vertical videos.

[mikesc]

Requires creating a youtube account..with all that that entails..better ( IMO ) to run your own site, host your own videos etc..But, it wasn't my original video ( I just recoded it and rotated it, to try to help out ) so I don't have the rights to host it..

 

Quote

That's one of the reasons youtube is so popular - it just works on nearly every device.

Youtube is sent from Google as flash in a lot of browsers and systems ( no matter what format you may have uploaded it there as )..which is a horrible security risk, and when it isn't sent as flash, it is sent as HTML5 media..which many older machines, operating systmes and browsers don't support, so they drop back to flash, with all the security risks that running flash entails..nearly an exploit per day for years..thanks macromedia /adobe..

However, at least one is not required to join, sign in, or register in order to see content on youtube, unlike facebook , pinterest et al..

Quote

Mark the video "unlisted" if you only want close, personal friends to know you take vertical videos.

Edited June 21, 2016 by mikesc

[ruinbliss]

1 hour ago, mikesc said:

Requires creating a youtube account..with all that that entails..better ( IMO ) to run your own site, host your own videos etc..But, it wasn't my original video ( I just recoded it and rotated it, to try to help out ) so I don't have the rights to host it..

 

Youtube is sent from Google as flash in a lot of browsers and systems ( no matter what format you may have uploaded it there as )..which is a horrible security risk, and when it isn't sent as flash, it is sent as HTML5 media..which many older machines, operating systmes and browsers don't support, so they drop back to flash, with all the security risks that running flash entails..nearly an exploit per day for years..thanks macromedia /adobe..

However, at least one is not required to join, sign in, or register in order to see content on youtube, unlike facebook , pinterest et al..

Thanks Mike for editing the vid. 

Apple programmers can be " sloppy" , in my uneducated opinion. 

They can't even get siri down. 

I will just go to you tube. 

I only have an Iphone, which is registered under my wife's name. 

 

[Uwe]

Last comments from me on the video topic, I promise. Most people have no clue what Flash and HTML5 even is, let alone have a sense of the effort and Infrastructure involved to make systems like Siri/Cortana/Alexa work at all. The average mobile phone has likely 100 times the compute power it took to get us to the moon. I film most of my HD videos on my iPhone and it's just plain amazing what it can do. Expecting the average leatherworker to set up up their own site for video hosting is unrealistic. Heck, most people in the industrial sewing machine business struggle with basic email! Watching Youtube videos on a mobile device or a Mac is seriously low risk. 

[Techsew Ron]

13 hours ago, Uwe said:

Mark the video "unlisted" if you only want close, personal friends to know you take vertical videos.

someone had to say it!