AB DICK ruby 3000. Reliability and quality

I am looking to buy a two colour press to run in my garage. I am looking at a AB Dick ruby 3000. I am also looking at a Ryobi 3302. Can anyone give me an apinion on which is best and the bad points on each press. Many thanks Calum

 

AB Dick is only a brand name, not manufacturer.

 

Mr rossio, for Century 3000 and 3500 AB Dick is a manufacturer as well as for many AB Dick presses up untill Presstek bought them and now they are just a brand who sells re-labeled ryobis.
Century's have a problem - half of the techs don't know where to start, another helf is scared to start. If you don't have a good tech who knows this particular model - don't get in to it. Century 3500 is better choice as there was a lot of improvements done to it from 3000. I have 3500 with stream feeder and it is nice machine, having it's bad days once upon a time, but mechanics look so simple - so little moving parts. Ryobi parts and service are easier to come by but a descent press cost $12000 and up rearly less if machine is nice, my tech told me that ryobi looks a lot more complicated mechanically where Century 3500's towers look like Diddie (web press).

 

Sorry but i thinks that´s a popular fallacy.
I was salesman at AB Dick Germany within the Eighties and should know some facts about the Comp.
Nobody told us details about supplier and even secret were places of shipment. But some supplier like ITEK, Ryobi or Eskofot were known. A conglomerate of supplier, one brand name.
F.E. at the time AB Dick´s answer to Xerox 9500 / 9700: The 360 plus electrostatic plate processor made by Eskofot. Awful...they slept away the dawn of digits.
Suppose that office copiers were made by japanese comps. like Ricoh. Country of origin: US (in documents)
Look: http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/ABDick-Company-Company-History.html

 

Being EX Abdick engineer and now Ryobi engineer I have worked on both machines,,The 3500 is better than the 3000, the machine itself was designed by Itek and then taken over by ABdick mid process, The build quality of the Ruby and Ryobi 3302H are both quite good but the Ryobimatic Damping system is much better, No AbDIck engineer I knew liked the Ruby. Also Plate clamping on the Ruby is tight and hard to access.

 

To correct your post, AB Dick did have their own manufacturing facility in the United States where they manufactured the AB Dick 3000 and 3500 series presses (maybe other models too but they did later re-brand the Ryobi lines also after stopping production of the Century line), they manufactured a lot of their own parts for them including side frames, mechanical parts and such...the company then became Presstek which I have learned has been bought by Mark Andy...