What are “embroidery heads”?

A common question to people new in the embroidery business or, looking to buy commercial embroidery equipment is: “What are Embroidery Heads”? Embroidery Heads are individual embroidery stations. The embroidery head is part of the machine that contains all the needles. Each head is a station where one piece of embroidery can be embroidered at a time. A multihead is a machine with more than 1 head. A 1 head machine is also known as a single head. A 1 head is limited to one embroidery garment at a time. So, a 2 head embroidery machine is a machine with 2 embroidery station. Each station or “head” can embroider one garment at a time so, a 2 head will embroider 2 items at a time. With a typical multihead embroidery machine, each head will embroider the same item. Each embroidery head operates at the same time designing the same logo. Also, you generally cannot mix cap and flat embroidery. You can only do either caps or either shirts, for example, but not both at the same time. Butterfly also offers Dual,Tri and Quad “multihead” packages that are actually single head machines. With this setup, you can mix and match designs and garments because each head runs independently.