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noladhk

North Carolina USA
Skill: Intermediate

I recently purchased an Elna Xquisit. Is there any way to use the Generations and send the designs to the machine via the serial port cable? So far the machine won't accept anything from Generations. I was able to get it to accept a file from Xpressive (Elna's software - I downloaded the current trial version), but I would prefer to use Generations over Xpressive.

beauturbo

California USA
Skill: Advanced

No there is just not.
I do know that for sure. If your requirements are you really wish to only send an embroidery design from your computer down a Null Modem serial cable in the special way it must be done for that particular machine, from within any kind of computer software program you have only very limited choices in doing that. And that rules out using that Generations kind of software to do that one thing with. and pretty much all others, except for a very select few. Because no one, that was not involved and working with Juki on that machine, would ever have any kind of built in serial transfer kind of way, to ever even do that.
So if you wish to use just only the Null modem serial transfer to get an outside design into that machine you have, there are just very, very few choices. Ones that I know about and would work just at least for me, (but everyone is different and has differnt level of skills using a computer too) are:
elna Xpressive software, the first version of it, with a Null Modem serial cable.
elna Xpressive software, the second and last version of it, with a Null Modem serial cable.
I also could even use my free little Singer Conversion Tool Software, that came with all Singer XL6000 machines, and a Null Modem cable to do that.
I also could even use my not free at all, and very expensive instead, Singer PSW2 full manual digtizing program and it's white card/reader writer box as just the dongle device for that program to do that there too, and then actually doing that, with two Null Modem serial cables, in the mix too. And those are about it.
That is because that machine was made by Juki for Singer and elna.
And internally it is much the same and works the same way, in just both of them, for receiving Null Modem serial transmission in the .emd stitch file it needs and also all the other same named but different file extension named files that need to go along with each and every embroidery design you 'feed' to the machine by Null Modem serial transmission in that particular way. I can use both some select old Singer and elna software to do that one thing though, as both Pulse, whom made the elna software and Compucon whom made the Singer software for those somewhat matching to each other machines, actually worked with Juki and really matched their software design and functions to what is in the machine and how it really works, just for the Null Modem serial kind of design transfer there. But no other embroidery software kinds of programs, have ever bothered to do that at all. My guess is, because really no money in it for them at all, to even try to do that at all. so for just Null modem serial kind of transmission, those are your limitations there.
If you want to use smart media card instead, then you got lots more possibilities.

beauturbo

California USA
Skill: Advanced

However, I really can and so could you, use any kind of embroidery software or digitizing program with just any kind of embroidery machine if you really want to 'bad enough'. So, if I wanted to use the specific Generations kind of embroidery digitizing program to make embroidery designs and just sew them out on my elna Xquisit machine, that actually would not be stopping me at all and should not be stopping you at all either. But you do need to do that in some kind of way, that would actually work for a software each time and works with a machine.
If Generations software really can export a self made embroidery design in there, to a .emd file and really with all the matching to it, associated file extensions of just .inf, .img, .iif, .pat, .col and .edt that you need to make the sewing machine work with your fingers on it's LED screen, and also to travel back and forth for editing using your fingers on the sewing machine LED screen when doing that, and actually format a smart media card into the right kind of ways with tags and partitions on it, then you might even be able to use Generations to even just write a embroidery design in the correct way onto a smart media card instead, for the machine.
But, I don't know if it can do that or not. I'm not willing to find out myself, as don't have that embroidery program in my computer, and not willing to pay a whole $49 for the free trail version to find out for you either, as just not worth it to me, and I don't need it for anything. But you could always do that if you wished, or just call them up and ask maybe.
But even if it could not do that one kind of very specialized thing at all, I could still use that digitizing program with your machine, to just create embroidery designs, and sew them out there. but in that case, I would then have to use 'something else' and secondary though as a further way of getting an embroidery design onto smart media card in the right way each time though. so if you wished to do it that way instead, then you would use Generations to make an embroidery design, then afterwards save out and export out of there, as the most common .dst kind of embroidery design format, and then use something else, to get that very common .dst kind of embroidery file, into a machine format and in a way your machine, could understand and use it, off a smart media card instead. that would always work too.

noladhk

North Carolina USA
Skill: Intermediate

Thank you! I went ahead and got Generations, and while there is definitely a learning curve, I am figuring it out. I also had to get a new media card reader and a friend gave me some more media cards. I am using Embird to convert the Gernerations file to a .EMD file and then saving it to the media card. I wish the serial port cable would work with Embird simply because it would be a lot faster, but I guess this is what you get when you buy an older machine. The serial port cable will work if I use Xpressive, but I don't like it at all. I'll put up with the inconvience of the meda card so I can use Generations.
I'm now having a lot of fun with my new toy!!

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