Ricoma, any thoughts??

Hello Guys,
My wife is considering to buy one Ricoma,
So here I am to ask for an advice, and i would appreciate to receive one especially from those how are since a while here.

We do little volumes of embroidery and mostly unique designs, and for this we bought bernina 530 with embroidery module one year ago. (we did something like 2M stitches in a year)
However the volumes were a bit to big for household machine, so we've decided to go for industrial embroidery machine and software for "digitizing" pictures.

Our budget is 10k$ and we live in Ukraine (Market of used machines is not big in here)

So we got following options:
1)
We buy Ricoma 1501pt for 7500$ (i'm kinda worried about the support we shall get in Ukraine on this one)
2)
Or we shall look for the machine you can suggest within the budget.

Thank you in advance for your advices.
I will be happy to bring more clarifications if there is need.
Kind regards,

Myroslav

We bought one two heads Ricoma Embroidery Machine, only ran almost 50 hours, then something wrong, the speed was slow, wrong location stitched, tried to contact Frank Ma to settlle an agreement to return it or change another one, but never answer me. So I suggest the people to buy the SWF, Brother or Tajima brand, they are good.This is my stupid decision to put $15000 on RICOMA

I bought a Toyota 850 used, works great. look into buying used from the companies that make them, that way, you can still get possible training and support.
Mainly, when buying a machine, find out what machines have close support and repair people.

i have a serrious problem with RICOMA 12 neddle it's the initialising Error, so if some one have a solution for it please help me
(the error msg : http://www.imagup.com/data/1164966535.html )

For me is been good, I just order 2 head
Vision print is my shop
we are located in west Palm beach FL
Customer support been great,.any questions l have had, just call my seller rep,.he.pass to support team,.then they call me or email me the answer

Dear @icrsigns I apologize for this inconvenience you are having with the machine. Have you contacted one of our dedicated technicians at our headquarters in Miami, FL? I am sure they will be able to assist you in any issues you may have. Please email them service@ricoma.us or by phone 305.418.4421.

You can also contact me directly miguel@ricoma.us

Thank you

Yes I have a Ricoma for the first machine I swear nothing but problems almost $2,000.00 in repairs machine still not running as other machine definitely wouldn't refer my blind dog to this company and company doesn't stand behind there work repairs last maybe a week before the same problem occurs

I personally drove this machine from Atlantic City New Jersey all the way to Florida they fixed machine it worked maybe 10days if that but they come here tonAtlantic City I asked if they can come pass my. Haines which wasn't 3/4blocks away but I traveled 1700miles 19hours with Ricoma Machine what type businessman are you guys then offer me $1,000 for my machine

Jermaine I wish you had researched and found this thread BEFORE buying your Ricoma. What research DID you do? To help others who are reading this, what did you look at before making the decision to purchase an embroidery machine? What helped you or steered you towards this particular machine? Hopefully they will fix the issues you are currently having but I am more concerned about what makes someone go down this path to begin with?

Is the Ricoma brand sold under different names as well? Just wanting to know what to look out for. I heard that one company makes this embroidery machine, rebrand it and sell it to different customers.

As a 24 year service tech for just about every brand of embroidery machines. I no longer work on any brand of Chinese brand of embroidery machine. It's just to hard trying to find parts that fit or better yet work when you do find them. Customers expect top notch service from me. I have build a very loyal customer base In these years and working on the Chinese brand started to effect my long standing reputation. If I can tell you any words of advice take the money you were going to spend on a Chinese machine and find a used Barudan or Tajima, Toyota 9000, or 9100 The money you think your saving on a chinese machine will be spent on repairs and parts. You will come out ahead of the game spending and little more now. Remember pay me now or pay me later. Always always always check with a independent tech before you buy any machine. It.s like talking to a good auto repairman. You never know he/she may know of a customer that has something that fits you needs that he can give his stamp of approval to.

Scott Marshall
Southern Exposure Technical Service

770-917-8825 (Office) 770-330-9869 (Mobile) 770-917-0077 (Fax) suthexpo@aol.com

Barudan, Tajima, SWF, Toyota
Certified Embroidery Machine Monger

I know I am late coming into the party, but they have not changed and neither has their product... It's still trash and does not do as promised.:mad::mad::mad:

Do not purchase... They were going to take it back and until they do I will let everyone know the trash they sold me.

If you are going to buy a used machine, buy one that you know the most about or have the most experience running/troubleshooting yourself. It will cost you too much in the end to get a tech. to come out to your place to fix it or ship it somewhere to get fixed. You will end up losing money in the process so it isn't worth it. It is like a car....get a machine that has a good reputation, easily able to get parts, easy to fix yourself. If you have a nice car but the parts are expensive, not easily available when you are in a bind(machines always tend to go down during a rush order) and no one but the dealer can fix it, it is not worth it in the end....

Just one more thing to add. I had an issue with my machine I couldn't figure out, so I contacted the closest emb. tech. to come to my place. He wanted me to pay for his transportation, his overnight stay at a hotel, and labor. I was lucky in the end I was able to figure out the issue so I was able to cancel the tech. in time. Otherwise it would have costed me an arm and a leg. You have to think of the long term picture when buying a machine not just the upfront cost.

Jermaine, our technicians have gone through the troubleshooting procedures with you yesterday and have determined that the main motor driver board would need to be replaced to fix the issue you are experiencing, and we apologize that the main motor did not fix the issue previously but at least it allowed us to rule out the motor as a potential problem. From our understanding, you mentioned after our troubleshooting procedures with you that you did not want to proceed with replacing the boards that we recommended, but please do let us know if the situation has changed so we can help assist you further. Thank you.

I used to be the production manager for a large embroiderer in Brisbane.
My boss who is Chinese decided to purchase a 6 Head Feiya from China.
Feiya is the same company that builds the RICOMA machine. RICOMA is
the OEM version.
For a while he was even promoting this equipment.
Fortunately we quickly realised although the price was great, the quality of
the machine was terrible. The quality that the machine produced was woeful.
The entire exercise was a complete and utter disaster.
We eventually dumped the machine to free up space.
Never again would I ever purchase a CHINESE embroidery machine.

That's exactly what I'm hoping for. I just referred to as them and apparently their aid marketers in that dept are currently in a assembly. The person I spoke with has arranged for a name again for loan. I will file again here with what takes place.

:rolleyes: Maintenance Tool Box for Ricoma = Dupont Dissembly Master Tool = DYNAMITE WITH A 90 SECOND FUSE TO LET YOU GET AWAY FROM THE BLAST RADIUS !! ;) :D