Eltosch Grafix Celebrates Union, LED Powerline Curing Technology

Led Powerline Focus

PINNEBERG, Germany — February 13, 2017 — In 2014, two printing industry leaders Eltosch and Grafix merged to form one Industry Powerhouse within the Hönle Group portfolio of leading technology companies. 2017 marks a combined 120 years of development, production enhancements, and leadership in printing technologies for Eltosch Grafix and a reason for much celebration as the trailblazing continues.

70 Years of Grafix
The company was founded by Albin Platsch in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1947. Primarily specializing in the development and manufacturing of powder sprayers for sheetfed presses, Grafix quickly became the standard for peripheral equipment in the graphics arts industry.

Simultaneously building their product portfolio with advanced powder extraction systems and dryers for multiple industry segments and applications, the company was also expanding their reach into all major economic regions including Europe, the Americas, and Asia.

Grafix products remain the performance benchmark and specified standard equipment on a multitude of leading press manufacturers worldwide. With the equipment reputation and broad market acceptance it is no surprise that by 1985 the 6.000th Exactomat, a patented powder sprayer, was installed. In total, more than 10.000 units of this powder sprayer were once in operation worldwide.

Prior to being brought into the Dr. Hönle AG family of high-tech companies in 2013, Grafix had been a family owned business for three generations.

50 Years of Eltosch
Eltosch reflects on 50 years of company success and industry firsts while also maintaining their focus on the next generation of production solutions for the printing industry. Like Grafix, the roots of the company lie in the courage and ambition of a young and clever wiz: Torsten Schmidt. As a company vision Schmidt focused on the development, production and sale of drying equipment to be integrated primarily in the printing industry as a production solution for inks, varnishes and coatings.

Inert UV System from 1990s.

With this vision, as early as in the early 60s, the first infrared dryers were integrated in sheetfed press lines and a production transformation was underway: increased quality of the finished product while dramatically reducing production times.

In 1978 Eltosch launched their next innovation of inline UV curing systems as a key part of their equipment portfolio. With this development and focus Eltosch became a leading pioneer in UV curing technology. Today standard specification technologies such as dichroitic reflectors or electronic power supplies were non-existent before the innovative developments lead by companies like Eltosch Grafix.

With innovation as a company culture and patented technology backing it up, Eltosch continues its legacy as high-tech leader. Another example is Eltosch highly efficient UV curing technology, a core feature of Eltosch UV curing equipment. This core system technology has been providing energy savings for Eltosch customers going on several decades now!

Eltosch through the years has experienced tremendous market acceptance and growth in all segments. The company continues to diversify into all industry market segments and with a wide range of UV curing technologies and UV curing systems, including inert gas applications, is able to serve a broad range of industries using UV curing technology in manufacturing.

In 2008 Eltosch Torsten Schmidt GmbH was also brought into the worldwide UV technology leader Dr. Hönle AG and remains focused covering a broad range of printing industry segments.

120 Years of Joined Innovation
Since 2014 these two stand-out leaders in their market segments have been brought together within the Hönle Group to form the cohesive powerhouse, Eltosch Grafix GmbH.

Powder Sprayer, 1950s.

With a broad technological expertise and product portfolio, the company maintains their competency at their facilities in Pinneberg / Hamburg and Stuttgart. Yet another example of this synergy was the development of truly next generation technology - LED Powerline Focus.

The deep heritage and expertise of Eltosch Grafix, as well as the broad technological developments by Hönle all contributed in developing the powerful and efficient LED Powerline Focus curing technology for the sheetfed offset market.

Source: Eltosch Grafix.