Choosing the right RMGT offset press for your shop
Volume and run length decide the format, long before color count does
The RMGT lineup PFS carries runs from compact A3 presses up to full 41-inch packaging platforms, and the format is the real decision, not how many stations you bolt onto it. The RMGT 520 fits smaller commercial work, the 790 handles 6-up work and heavier stocks, the 920 and 970 cover 8-up production, and the 1050 is built for full-size commercial and packaging applications. We size these off actual imposition data, not the spec sheet's maximum sheet size.
A shop running short-run postcards, direct mail, and small-format commercial work rarely needs more than the 340 series or the 520 line. The RMGT 340HA-2 and 340HA-4 are A3 vertical presses built for exactly that kind of short-run multicolor job: the 340HA-4 handles postcards, leaflets, direct-mail advertisements, and envelopes in 4-color. If your job mix is mostly 2-up and 4-up commercial sheets with moderate monthly volume, this is where to start, not the 8-up press that looks impressive on the floor.
The step up to the 790 (B2) makes sense once you're running heavier stock or need perfecting on a sheet that's still smaller than a full 40-inch format. The 7 Series is a B2 multi-color offset press rated for up to 31-point stock, with a max paper size of 29.5 x 23.6 inches, and sheets up to 31 x 23.6 inches can be fed. That stock range matters more than people expect: heavy cover stock and light packaging board both run through this press without the compromises you'd hit on a 520.
The 920 and 970 (RMGT's 8-up, A1-class series) are the press we point most commercial shops toward when they've outgrown a 6-up and are weighing whether to jump straight to a full 40-inch B1 press. They don't need to. The 920 prints 8-up in international A4 or letter size, with lower plate costs, power draw, and space requirements than a B1-size press. For a shop that's mostly running letter and A4-format commercial work, short-run packaging, or direct mail, this is the format that lets you add capacity without doubling your plate and utility costs.
The 1050 is the right call only when you're actually running full parent sheets regularly, commercial work that needs the extra sheet size, or packaging and folding carton production. We've seen shops buy a 1050 because it was the "biggest" press available, then run it at 60% of a sheet for years. If your imposition data doesn't call for the full 41-inch format, don't buy it for headroom you won't use.
Floor space is never just the press footprint
Floor space problems almost never come from the press bed itself. They come from everything around it. An 8-color 920 or 970 configuration with a convertible perfector and dual LED-UV curing units (one over the perfector, one at delivery) needs clearance on both ends of the press for sheet travel, plus room for the UV power supply and chiller cabinets that sit outside the press line. Add inline coating and you've added another unit's worth of floor space and a dedicated spot for coating supply tanks. Before you commit to a configuration, walk the actual floor with us and account for delivery pile height, plate-changing access, and electrical service, not just the press's published dimensions. For exact footprint and utility requirements on a specific configuration, we pull the manufacturer's installation datasheet for that press rather than work from a web spec.
Staffing determines how much automation actually pays for itself
A straight 2-color or 4-color 340 or 520 runs reliably with a rotating operator pool. The makeready is forgiving, and the press doesn't punish small technique differences between operators. Once you move to an 8-color 920 or 970 running perfecting and LED-UV, the automation level you spec should match the bench strength you actually have on the floor, not the crew you wish you had.
This is where RMGT's Sentinels registration system and in-press camera inspection earn their keep. A shop with one strong pressman and a rotating second shift benefits from closed-loop color control and automated plate loading, because it removes operator-to-operator variation instead of relying on everyone matching the same eye for color. Shops that skip these options to save money and then run the press with inconsistent crews are the ones whose color complaints and re-run costs we hear about later. If your staffing is thin or turns over, spec the automation. If you've got a dedicated, experienced pressman on every shift, you can get away with a leaner configuration and put that budget elsewhere.
The press has to work with what's already on your floor, not just what's in the showroom
A new RMGT press is only as good as the prepress and finishing it feeds into. Plate output size from your CTP needs to match the press format you're buying: an 8-up 920 needs a platesetter that can actually produce that plate size efficiently, not a smaller unit running double cycles. LED-UV curing changes your finishing sequence too. Instantly cured sheets can go straight to cutting, folding, or laminating without the stacking and offset powder concerns of conventional ink, but only if your downstream finishing equipment is set up to receive sheets at that pace. We've installed 920s into shops where the bottleneck shifted immediately to an undersized cutter or a perfect binder that couldn't keep up. The press wasn't the constraint anymore. The bindery was.
Job mix tells you more than rated speed ever will
Rated sheets-per-hour numbers matter less than what you're actually printing. RMGT's 9 Series press created the 8-up format as a middle ground between digital devices, which are small and expensive to run, and 40-inch presses that rarely run a full sheet, for commercial work like direct mail, 16-page signatures, and short-run packaging. If your work is mostly short to medium runs in that format range, the 920 or 970 will out-earn a 40-inch press that's underutilized on most jobs. If you're regularly running long packaging or commercial runs at full sheet size, the 1050's higher throughput on full-format work justifies the larger footprint and plate cost.
Stock range is the other variable that gets missed. The 790's 31-point stock capability opens up heavier board and packaging substrates that a 520 simply can't run cleanly. If folding carton or heavy cover stock is a growing part of your mix, don't try to stretch a lighter press to cover it. The makeready time and waste will eat the savings.
Total cost of ownership is where shops either win or get burned
Plate cost, power draw, and the cost of outgrowing a press early are the three numbers we watch closest. Moving up a format class raises plate cost per job and utility draw, which is why we don't recommend buying a 1050 for a shop running mostly 8-up work. The ongoing plate and power cost never gets recovered. On the other end, a shop that buys a compact 340 or 520 to save money up front, then hits capacity in under two years because the job mix shifted toward longer runs or larger formats, ends up paying twice: once for the first press, again for the upgrade, plus the resale discount on equipment that's barely broken in.
As the RMGT distributor for the Western U.S., we price configurations against your actual three-to-five year volume and job mix, not just today's workload, and our service department has a good read on which configurations hold their value and which ones get traded in early because they were sized for a peak that never came back. If you're between two formats, the conservative call is almost always the smaller press with room to add automation later, not the larger press bought for growth that hasn't shown up yet in your order book.
Common RMGT offset press problems and how to fix them
The press is out of register between units, usually first visible on fine type or four-color process work
This is the complaint we get called about most. Most of the time the actual cause is packing, blanket condition, or gripper timing that's drifted since the last changeover, not the press itself. Confirm it before you touch anything: pull a sheet and check register unit by unit rather than guessing from the finished sheet, because a 0.1mm shift that shows up as color fringing on unit three can actually originate on unit two if the blanket there has started to swell or glaze unevenly. The usual culprits are a plate or blanket that has moved, or gripper pressure that needs readjusting. On presses running RMGT's Sentinels camera-based registration system, also check the camera lens itself before assuming a mechanical cause: if the camera can't read the registration marks, clean it or recalibrate the software. Ink mist and paper dust settle on that lens fast in a running pressroom. The fix sequence: clean and recalibrate the camera first since it's the quickest check, then verify gripper pressure and packing gauge on the suspect unit, then inspect blanket condition for swelling or edge lift. Prevention is a blanket wash every shift change on coated stock runs and a packing gauge check at every blanket change, not just when register problems show up. An operator can run the camera cleaning and a basic packing check. If gripper timing or cylinder-to-cylinder geometry is suspect, that's a service call, because adjusting it wrong on an 8-color 920 or 970 configuration can introduce a problem on units that were fine.
Hickeys and small white or dark spots keep appearing in solid ink coverage, usually in the same spot on every sheet
Hickeys are almost always a contamination problem in the ink film, not a press defect, and the pattern tells you where to look. If the spot repeats at the same position sheet after sheet, it's riding on a roller or the blanket, most often dried ink skin, paper lint, or a dust nib that got rolled into the ink train. Confirm it by pulling a proof sheet and measuring the repeat distance against blanket cylinder circumference; if it matches, the contamination is on the blanket. If it matches a roller circumference instead, it's upstream in the ink train. The fix is a wash-up on the affected cylinder or roller, done with the correct blanket or roller wash, not a generic solvent that can swell the blanket face. If hickeys show up randomly rather than repeating, the ink itself is skinning in the can or duct, which means covering ink ducts between runs and screening ink before loading rather than chasing the press. This is routine operator maintenance: a blanket wipe-down at the end of every shift and a visual roller check before startup catches most of this before it ever prints. Persistent hickeying that survives a full wash-up points to a damaged blanket or a nicked roller, which does need a technician to inspect and likely replace the part rather than keep washing around it.
Non-image areas are toning or scumming, especially on long solid runs
This is an ink-water balance problem on nearly every call we get for it, and it's almost always fixable on the floor. The ink is overpowering the dampening system, the fountain solution concentration has drifted, or the dampening rollers have glazed and stopped transferring water evenly. Confirm with a fountain solution conductivity and pH check against the supplier's spec before adjusting anything on the press, because correcting water feed settings against a fountain solution that's already out of range just masks the real problem temporarily. If the solution checks out, feel the dampening rollers for glazing: a glazed roller feels slick and hard rather than slightly tacky and won't hold an even water film. The fix: correct the fountain solution concentration first, then increase water feed incrementally rather than in one large jump, and deglaze or replace dampening rollers that have hardened. Toning that reappears within an hour of correction usually means the rollers need replacing, not just adjusting. Prevent this with a daily fountain solution conductivity check before the first job and a weekly dampening roller inspection for glazing or scoring; this is standard operator-level maintenance on every format from the 340 up through the 1050, and catching the fountain solution drift early is the single biggest lever an operator has over color consistency on a long run.
The feeder is pulling double sheets or missing feeds on a job that ran fine last week
Nine times out of ten this traces back to static buildup or a separator setting that's wrong for the current stock, not a feeder malfunction, especially with a stock change to coated or heavier board. Confirm by checking the air blower and separator finger settings against the stock caliper you're actually running, not the last job's settings, and check static with a handheld meter if the shop runs low-humidity conditions seasonally. The fix is usually a feeder table adjustment: reset the separator gap to the new sheet caliper, adjust blower air volume, and add or verify static bars are grounded and clean. If double feeds continue after those adjustments, inspect the feed suckers for worn or cracked rubber, which won't release a single sheet cleanly even with correct air settings. This is operator-level troubleshooting on every RMGT format we carry, and it's worth logging separator and air settings by stock type so changeovers don't start from scratch every time. A feeder that keeps misfeeding after settings and suckers both check out usually has a worn feed head component, and that's a service call.
LED-UV cured ink feels tacky off the press or scuffs during finishing, on presses running RMGT's LED-UV curing option
This is a different troubleshooting path than conventional ink problems because the cure happens in a fraction of a second under the lamp rather than through oxidation in the stack, so the usual "give it time" fix doesn't apply. If the lamp intensity is too low or the ink formulation doesn't match the light spectrum, the ink may only cure on the surface while remaining wet underneath, which leads to adhesion failure. Confirm it with a rub test directly off the delivery pile rather than waiting, and check it on heavy solids and dense colors specifically, since thicker ink and coating layers absorb more UV light and prevent it from reaching the bottom layers, with opaque white and heavy pigmented colors especially prone to this. Also check press speed against the lamp's rated output: as press speed increases, exposure time decreases, and if UV power isn't increased proportionally, curing will be incomplete. The fix: confirm the LED array is clean first, since blocked or dirty LED heads are a common cause of uneven curing, and even a small amount of ink mist or dust can impede light output. Clean the LED modules on a regular schedule. If the array is clean, reduce press speed or increase lamp dose rather than running at rate and hoping the finishing department doesn't notice. Keep LED-UV lamp cleaning on a weekly schedule at minimum, more often on heavy solid-coverage work, since ink mist accumulates fastest on those jobs. A dirty lamp array is operator-level cleaning. If cleaning and speed/dose adjustment don't resolve the problem, the lamp output itself may be degrading or the ink formulation may not match your LED wavelength, and that's worth a call to us before you run more stock through it.
Print quality degrades gradually over a run, more ink needed to hold the same density by the end of the shift
This is a roller train problem that builds slowly enough that operators often compensate with ink key adjustments rather than catching the root cause, which is ink roller glazing or stripping. Ink rollers that have hardened or picked up a film lose their ability to transfer ink evenly, so the press reads like it needs more ink when it actually needs the rollers cleaned or deglazed. Confirm by feeling the ink form rollers for a slick, hardened surface compared to a roller early in the ink train, and check for a visible shine or color variation along the roller face. The fix is a full roller train wash and, if glazing is advanced, a deglazing treatment on the affected rollers; ink key compensation only buys time and wastes ink. Prevent this with a complete roller train strip-down and wash on the interval your ink and blanket wash schedule calls for, typically weekly on presses in daily production, and a visual roller check at the start of every shift. This is a job an experienced operator can do with the correct wash-up materials. Rollers that won't come clean with a standard wash and keep glazing early are usually past their service life, and replacing an ink train on an 8-color 920 or 970 is worth doing with genuine RMGT rollers and a factory-trained tech, because mismatched roller durometer across the train reintroduces the same ink transfer problem you just fixed.