Customer Reviews

Brother SE400 Computerized Embroidery and Sewing Machine

5 star:		(114)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I just purchased a Brother SE-400 computarized sewing and embroidery machine from Ken's Sewing and Vacuum Center via Amazon.com. It arrived within three days. So far, I am VERY pleased with this machine.
Loving embroidery, I decided to purchase the Brother SE-400, as it had all the features I wanted and it was within my price range. Prior to my purchase, I read all the web reviews I could find on the SE-350, as there are barely any reviews yet for the SE-400 (new on the market). Noteworthy is the fact that the SE-350 and the SE-400 are the exact same machines except for the additional computer connectivity that the SE-400 possesses. The SE-400 has a port for computer connectivity and comes with a USB cable which helps connect directly the sewing machine to your computer. This is an advantage over the SE-350 as this feature allows you to upload embroidery designs directly from the web(or your computer) to your machine, and update your machine's operational software from Brother whenever updates occur.
The SE-400 is compact enough, comes with a handle at the top, which makes it truly portable. Even though it is relatively lightweight (compared to my good 40-year old "all metal" Kenmore), the SE-400 feels sturdy while sewing and it is a very easy machine to operate. The manuals that came with the machine are very well written and the diagrams easy to follow. It took me only a few minutes to figure out how this machine operates. I love the self threading feature of the machine, as well as the built-in thread cutter, bobbin sensors, and drop in lower bobbin.
I was also delighted to find out that the embroidery part of the machine has the following built in features: You can reflect an embroidery design; and rotate the design 1 degree, 10 degrees, or 90 degrees at a time.
I appreciated all the enclosed accessories that came with my SE-400. I wished though that it came with an additional large embroidery hoop too, besides the medium hoop. I guess I will have to buy a large hoop sooner or later, if I am to become more involved with machine embroidery.
The SE-400 is a good choice for a home sewer. I give it a 5-star.
One more note. If you are looking for a hard carrying case for this machine, I highly recommend the Brother 5300 universal hard carrying case. It is the perfect fit for it.

I agree with the rave reviews for the se-350 now se-400.... for sewing, it's a dream of an upgrade from my battered but still working brother xr-40 bought from costco @ 10-ish years ago.
for embroidery it's limited as the max hoop size is not very large,and an extra purchase, but fun to play with. I give it 4 stars... it's a great intermediate sewing and beginner embroidery machine.

i purchased this machine (shipped promptly from J&R via Amazon) last month after a lot of research. what i found was.... the brother se-350 was pretty much identical to the brother project runway 6700 machine. the 6700 was recently updated to the 6800, adding 1 usb port, as was the se 350 was upgraded to the se-400 w/ usb port.
the project runway machines come w/ a roller case, the se models ship w/ vinyl case. se-400 is 100 bucks cheaper than the PR 6800. the se 350 is still shipping for same price as se-400. I advise purchasing the se-400 even if you don't plan on using it w/ your computer currently as brother will be offering system upgrades you will need usb port for.

most software for embroidery sewing/embroidery machines is not Mac compatible so i assumed the usb port would be useless for a while.. Wrong!

connect the se 400 via included usb cable to your Mac, it'll show up as an external hard drive, mine was named 'unknown', I do not advise changing this. then add PES files from your computer by dropping them on the sewing machine/external drive. do not add folders of designs on machine, they must be added one at a time to be recognized. (mac will display pes designs in finder as an image...but I've yet to find any software to edit them...)

Oh, & remember, it only holds 512 kb of data in memory so you can't load all your designs, unless you have a compatible memory card to load in machines slot. and the designs MUST be 4" by 4" or smaller or machine will not recognize them. (You can buy a larger hoop size to fit more than one 4 x 4 designs on fabric.)
And have fun!

This sewing machine is a dream!!!!I already own a viking and wanted to try embroidery so the price was right to see if I liked the world of embroidery. It is such an easy machine to use. A good suggestion is to watch a video on it's features and use ,first. Also, purchase thread and stabilizer at the same time. I am really pleased with it so far.

I bought the SE400 about 2 months ago from Amazon... I knew nothing about embroidery machines before my purches, so I was going by the good reviews & the price. I haven't been disappointed. I've done quite a few projects with this machine, and it has done exactly what I had purchased it for. I've done lots of personalizing things with names- pillowcases, flour sack towels, quilt labels.
Pros:
1. Price. This is the lowest priced embroidery machine that I've found, with the features that I wanted.
2. USB port. You can easily embroider designs (quite a few of them are free) from the internet. Easy to connect to your laptop & downlaod a design.
3. Fonts. There are 5 nice pre-installed fonts that come with the machine. They all work well, and are easy to use.
4. Ease of use. I had the machine out of the box, and was embroidering on a scrap piece of fabric within an hour after I opened the box. The touch screen makes it a snap to navigate the menu & find what you want.
5. Needle threader. I LOVE this feature. It works like a snap. You just thread the machine, and then push down on a little tab on the size, and viola! the needle is threaded. Easy as pie & has worked every time.
6. Thread cutter. This is also a great feature- it just cuts your thread for you when your design is finished. You can also set it to cut the thread between each letter, if your'e doing fonts.

Cons:
1. The designs that come pre-installed on the machine are not that great. But, never fear, the internet is filled with thousands and thousands of designs, and quite a few of them are free. Most pattern sites offer some free designs, and you can really start quite a collection just getting started with free designs. Out of the 70 designs pre-installed, maybe 10 of them are pretty good. The others are a little out-dated & old fashioned.
2. Internal memory. You can only save 10 patterns on the memory of the embroidery machine. So, I just save all my designs on my laptop, and then use the USB cable to connect to the machine. Only takes a few seconds to download the pattern I want to use & I'm on my way. I wish they'd let you delete some of the not-so-great pre-installed designs & make room to save ones that you really want. But, if you have a laptop, or a PC close by, it's not a big deal to just connect to your computer, and get sewing.
3. hoop size. You are limited to the 4x4 hoop size.

All in all, this is a great machine for the price. You can rotate designs, and resize them by a limited amount. It's easy to get started, and easy to thread. The touch screen is a nice feature, as is the needle threader (I wish my other sewing machine had this feature!). If you're looking for an inexpensive machine to get into embroidery with, this is your machine.

I was looking for an embrodiery machine that was reasonbly priced and this machine fit the bill. I had to embroider a digitized design on several pieces of fabric and did not want to pay $12 for each piece and wait 2 weeks, so I decided to take a buy this machine based on the reviews. I was totally new to the embrodiery world so I wasn't aware of all the tricks and learned the hard way. After several broken needles and jammed up fabrics, I realized it was the thread I was using and not the machine. I was using all purpose threading, however, I later realized specific embrodiery thread was needed due to the size of the threading. Once I loaded the right thread type in the upper threading and bobbin all my designs came out perfect. Duh!

The machine is very easy to use for loading thread, the bobbin and computer embrodiery designs. I truly couldn't ask for more. The LCD screen is also a very nice feature. But with this feature I feel that is a also the only overly cumbersome part of the machine. I am usually quick about learning software but the menu system is not very intuitive. However, once I read had to use it and played with it for a bit, I am able to get around. Also I had a digitized design that was 6 inches, with my thoought being I could load the design and use the machine to re-size it to be within the 4 inch hoop. However, the machine refuses to download it giving you a message that the design is too large for embrodiery area. I then found a free software to do those re-sizing jobs that start at larger than 6 inches, otherwise, the internal software works fine.

I can't speak to the sewing functionality but will plan on getting into this at a later point.

Overall a great machine at a reasonable price. For me it was and still is a no-brainer, I would buy it again.

I decided on the Brother SE400 after reading all the rave reviews and the price was right. I have a new sewing machine that works fine so I was mainly interested in this machine for the embroidery function. So far I've owned this machine for 2 days and have stitched 6 designs (5 from the internet and 1 preloaded) added some lettering and sewn 1 pair of shorts for my granddaughter.

The good parts:
-The instructional CD is helpful, once you're smart enough to stick it in your computer and not your DVD player.
-It is easy to set-up and get started.
-It works, my friend who just purchased a $1000 machine (not a Brother) has had much difficulty getting her machine to work and has ruined several articles of clothing in learning, where this machine stiched out every design without so much as breaking one thread.
-It is easy to download designs from a computer, but I haven't been successful yet at "saving" a design into the machine, which means if I didn't have a laptop I would be sewing in my office to hook to the desktop.
-The adjusting function, to move the location of the design within the frame is helpful and works well
-The resizing function works well, as does the rotating feature, both of which I found very useful.

The bad parts:
-The quick start guide is not helpful, it is only pictures with confusing flow lines, if it was all I had I would not be able to use the machine. It only makes sense AFTER you learn to use the machine. It should be titled Quick "Reference" Guide. But it does have the color pictures of the built-in designs.
-Of the 70 built in designs, 26 of them are the Alphabet for using to monogram, of the other 44 I will probably only use about half of them. Be prepared to get on the internet to get useful designs
-I've only tried so far to stitch out one font (but on more than one project) and the results were quite sub-standard, even after increasing the density, hopefully the other fonts will be more functional.
-while I understood how to thread the machine and was able to do so successfully, I found it consistently "difficult" to thread in a couple areas - maybe arthritic fingers are to blame?

The wish list:
-as an entry level machine it would have been helpful to have a little more instruction on using stablizer and hooping skills. The information given is basically "use stablizer - put stuff in hoop". It assumes the operator has some knowledge of the zillion stablizers on the market and can automatically figure out where to put the hoop to get the design where it is desired on the garment. Obviously, this is slightly beyond the scope of machine operation, but these are two skills that you must master to be satisfied with the results - and everyone knows if I can't get the design centered and upright - it's the machine's fault! (she says facetiously)

You should plan for:
Budget another $100 to buy thread, stabilizer and stuff to stitch on.

The bottom line:
The machine is as advertised, it is easy to use. The designs it can stitch out are acceptable and wearable. The internet if full of free and low cost designs that will fit in the 4x4 area of this machine. If you are like me and couldn't justify spending the "big bucks" this is the perfect little starter machine to see if you really do want to get started in a new phase of the sewing craft. If you start to regret not being able to stitch more than a 4x4 area without rehooping (that regret comes to play really fast), just get out your checkbook and look at what you paid and it will be easier to move the hoop!

I wanted a machine to do hems and repairs, maybe a few side seams. I was going to get a cheapie to get the job done. My husband got me this instead. The first night I was so intimidated I didn't take it out of the box! Boy, was I wrong! When I finally got brave and pulled it out, I popped in the DVD, and was up and going in no time. Easy to thread-the automatic needle threader is a big help. I was very excited about the embroidery function, and the process of changing out presser feet etc is pretty easy. You can't really mess up-everything fits exactly where it should, just look at the manual. I'm pretty impressed with this machine-I had a tiny bit of experience 20 years ago, and that's it. I've used it for monogramming and sewing at this point (had it a month) and the only problems I've had were entirely user error, not the machine. It's easy to use, and getting designs from the computer to the machine is not hard at all (drag and drop). I found designs for free online, you have to unzip the files, then put them onto the machine via USB. As a sewing machine, it works well also. I'm really happy with the ease of switching things out (presser feet, presser foot holder, etc) and also with the ease of threading (not like I remember the old machines). I ordered this from Amazon with Prime 1-day shipping and got it the next day. Also, ordered thread, stabilizer and accessories here as well. Save yourself some time-I did price comparisions online and ended up back at Amazon each time.

Purchased this machine to use at a seasonal weekend home. I consider myself an advanced sewer. Solid little performer with ample built in features for my garment making and embroidery hobby. Imagine useful for other sewing interests as unit offers free style motion (feed dogs disengage). The product designers thought of including all the necessary accessories, including a dust cover, for both sewing and embroidery in a tidy little bag. The USB port connectivity opens up the wide world of design embroidery design downloads and manufacturer upgrades. Highly recommend.

I LOVE my embroidery machine! This is my first ever... so while I don't have anything to compare it to. I can say it is EASY to use & I LOVE being able to download designs off ETSY from my computer!! I do think I will invest in a bigger hoop though... I wasn't sure I would need it, but I will =) It was a great price & got great reviews... I would consider this a bargin! I sell embroidery items on Etsy.... am very happy with this!! Wish I bought it a long time ago!

I ordered this machine through Amazon at J&R Electronics and the description made me think this would be good as both a sewing and embroidery machine. The only problem I had was the tension mechanism stopped working about 2 days after I got started, also the majority of the parts are plastic. The company immediately sent me a shipping label and I have returned the machine. After purchasing the software to download designs from the web, I hope this works...we'll see.