PES2Card - General Information

Brother, Baby Lock, Bernina Deco, Simplicity, Viking and Husqvarna

NEWS: May 25, 2001: New model PES2Card: USB
NEWS: Aug 30, 2001: Write floppies for Designer 1
NEWS: Oct 5, 2001: Write floppies for Ellageo/ULT2001/Galaxy 3000
NEWS: Feb 14 2002: PES2Card3
NEWS: Apr 29, 2002: Additions for 7570 and 2140
NEWS: Jun 22, 2002: Write card for Janome 5000/9000
NEWS: Aug 15, 2002: Write card for Janome 8000
NEWS: Sep 20, 2002: Write card for Janome Scan 'n Sew I
NEWS: Nov 3, 2002: write all Artista rewritable cards
NEWS: Feb 14, 2003: Artista 200E + TAP files
NEWS: Mar 21, 2003: Designs to Artista 200E ATA card in EXP format
NEWS: Mar 21, 2003: Read Singer XL100 designs + alphabets (requires adapter)
NEWS: Mar 21, 2003: Catalogs of folders and cards you can also print
NEWS: Mar 21, 2003: Drag designs and drop them on the Write Card dialog
NEWS: May 29, 2003: Designs to Janome MC10000 ATA card in JEF format
NEWS: May 29, 2003: Read/write Singer XL1000 designs (requires adapter)
NEWS: Aug 30, 2003: Write Singer XL100 designs (requires adapter)
NEWS: Oct 12, 2003: Designs to Janome 300E/MC10001 ATA card in JEF format
NEWS: Oct 12, 2003: Read Singer XL1000 compressed cards
NEWS: Dec 08, 2003: Write cards for Pfaff 2140
NEWS: Dec 08, 2003: Support for PR600/EMP6
NEWS: Feb 10, 2004: Support for Machine Cross Stitch
NEWS: Feb 10, 2004: Support for PE Design/Palette 5.6
NEWS: Feb 10, 2004: Various improvements for Pfaff 7570
NEWS: Jul 28, 2004: VP3 format, MHV pictures
NEWS: Oct 16, 2004: PE6 format, EMD format, Ellegante/Innovis, Toolbars...
NEWS: Jan 2, 2005: Uxx format, Help Library, new InstallShield version
NEWS: Feb 18, 2005: PES2Card3-SE, Art+Emb, Janome 1000x, Set Designer
NEWS: Apr 24, 2005: Embird TMP format (interchangeable file format)
NEWS: Jul 3, 2005: EmbCard
NEWS: Aug 20, 2005: Support for Pfaff grand hoop
NEWS: Sep 5, 2005: Support for Designer I 130X180 hoops + multipositioning
NEWS: Apr 10, 2006: Support for Deco 330 ATA, Artista 630, 640, 730
NEWS: Sep 10, 2006: Support for 150*150 Viking hoop
NEWS: Mar 8, 2007: Windows Vista compatibility
NEWS: Aug 28, 2007: Designer I USB, ZIP files
NEWS: Nov 30, 2008: Support for MB4, MC200, PE Design/Palette 8, Innovis I/Ellisimo
NEWS: Oct 30, 2009: Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 compatibility
NEWS: Aug 15, 2011: Windows 8 and Windows 2012 compatibility

What is PES2Card?

What about selecting any combination of designs from your hard drive, CD-ROM, Zip drive, floppy, the Internet, memory cards, save them to a rewritable memory card to be sewn out on your embroidery machine? PES2Card will do it for you!

PES2Card is a package that enables users of Brother, Baby Lock, Bernina or Simplicity embroidery machines to write a lot more more designs to an embroidery card than the approximately 55.000 stitches the current Brother blank cards can hold. PES2Card can currently handle cards that have a capacity of approximately up to 450.000 stitches.

PES2Card is a package that enables users of Viking or Husqvarna embroidery machines to write twice as much designs to an embroidery card than the approximately 130.000 stitches the current Viking blank cards can hold. PES2Card can currently handle cards that have a capacity of approximately up to 260.000 stitches.

NO digitising software required if you don't want to digitise.

NO special rewritable memory flash card required, re-use existing cards.

PES2Card has three major design goals:

develop a device that can read and write more designs to a card than the current PE Design or Viking card writer modules can.
develop a device for users that do not want to design, but only stitch out designs from floppy disk, hard drive, CD-ROM or Internet, such as the Amazing Designs Collections.
develop a device that can (re-)use all embroidery cards currently available for the target embroidery machines.

Card module

Power for the PES2Card card module is provided by an external power supply.
The difference between the two models of PES2Card is the interface with the computer. The first (RS232) model of the card module of PES2Card hooks up to one of the com ports of the computer similar to the PE Design card module. The new (USB) model of the card module of PES2Card hooks up to one of the USB ports on your computer or a USB Hub connected to your computer.
If you need advise on which model is suitable for you, follow this link.

Software

PES2Card comes with a utility to read/write designs from/to an embroidery card. The utility also provides a function to obtain information about an embroidery card. The utility can be installed using a standard InstallShield installation (setup).
As time progresses, the utility will be updated with new features as a result of customer requests and possibly new versions of PE Design / Palette / Deco Wizard coming out. Updates of the PES2Card utility will be free downloadable of course.

Embroidery cards

PES2Card supports three types of embroidery cards for Brother compatible embroidery machines: 512K, 1M and Brother blank cards that have a user area of 128K. PES2Card supports two types of embroidery cards for Viking compatible embroidery machines: 512K and 256K Viking blank cards. Most cards bought earlier from Great Notions or OESD can be re-used to write your designs on. PES2Card can provide information on what type of card you have. A list of cards an their usability can be found here. In order to re-use a card, you load first the designs that are on the card via the PES2Card utility and store them in a safe place. Now you can use the card for other designs as you can always write the original designs back to the card.

Capacity summary

Brother, Baby Lock, Deco
Card type	Size	Max Patterns	Approx stitches
Brother blank card	128K	24	55.000
Brother blank card	512K	?	200.000
Pattern card	512K	?	200.000
Pattern card	1M	?	450.000

Viking, Husqvarna
Card type	Size	Max Patterns	Approx stitches
Viking blank card	256K	102 *	130.000
Pattern card	512K	102 *	260.000
Pattern card	1M	102 *	260.000

* max patterns is 34 for multi position designs.

NOTE: You can only use half of the 1M card when using Viking embroidery machines. Hence there is no difference in stitch capacity between 512K and 1M cards for Viking. In order to use 1M cards the PES2card (1.01.004 upwards) will write the designs twice. This makes 1M cards usable for both Brother and Viking embroidery machines.

Availability

The first PES2Card units shipped February 14, 2000.
Software support for Viking released May 7, 2000.

Where to buy PES2Card? Click here

Current PES2Card owners can upgrade free of charge the PES2Card utility to enable the support for Viking embroidery cards.

Additional Applications

Multiple formats
PES files created using PE Design / Palette / Deco Wizard can be sent directly to a Brother or Viking embroidery card. There is no need for conversion between PES and HUS format to write designs to a Viking embroidery card.

Large designs
Designs larger than approximately 50.000 stitches can be split by SmartSizer. The resulting designs can be stored on a single card. If you have an embroidery machine that embroiders large designs, PES2Card will store them on a card as it has no size restrictions.

Collections
Designers can now create their own collections on cards. After creation of the designs multiple designs can be written at the same time to the larger card. A designer can protect a card if the designer wishes to do so (feature only available for Brother).

Buzz Tools
PES2Card can be configured in Buzz Tools as the double click association. This way PES files can be selected and sent to PES2Card to write to an embroidery card.

Embird
PES2Card can be configured in Embird as external application. This way you can select multiple PES files and send them with a single click to PES2Card to write to an embroidery card.

Questions & Answers

Click here for questions and answers. If your question/answer is not on the list, please send an e-mail.

Customer Feedback

"We tried it and we like it."
Stephanie sums up where PES2Card is all about: OUR USERS!!!

Viking and Husqvarna

PES2Card now supports Viking and Husqvarna embroidery cards. The PES2Card utility is released May 7, 2000.

The existing PES2Card cardmodule supports the Viking/Husqvarna cards already.

PES2Card will automatically detect the card type when reading. The user can select between Brother/Baby Lock/Deco and Viking/Husqvarna when writing.

PES2Card will accept all supported file formats (PES, PEC, PHC, HUS, HUC, SHV, PCS, PCM, VIP, VP3, SEW, JEF, DST, DSB, EXP, XXX, FMC, FDR, DAT, EMD, THR, TAP, DSZ) when writing to a Viking/Husqvarna card. This includes writing multi position designs created using PE Design 2.5 and upwards. During read both PEC and HUC format will be produced if a Viking/Husqvarna card is present.

Cards supported are 512K and the 256K Viking blank card. 1M cards are supported by the PES2Card utility via a dual write mechanism. Viking Rose and Viking 1+ embroidery machines both accept now cards written by PES2card (1.01.004 and upwards).

PES2Card (1.01.007 and upwards) provides full support for multi position designs (P1, P2, P3) and plus hoop. You can store up to 34 multi position designs on an embroidery card. The maximun number of designs is 102.

All trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.