Successful market launch of an innovative idea: After its highly acclaimed premiere at the glasstec trade show in 2022, the new hybrid steel straight connector with plastic bridge has become very well established on the market in a very short time. The product combines the best properties of straight connectors made of steel and plastic and thus offers optimum and secure sealing of the profile back, especially for large insulating glass units. “The interest in this new solution was very strong right from the start,” says Managing Director Ralf M. Kronenberg, looking back. “The share of large units in the market is steadily increasing and our new solution is ideally suited for this.” In fact, the steel straight connectors of the new CT Ultra series combine the respective advantages of the EK STEEL and EK POLO Connect product lines. “With their pipe-in-pipe principle, we guarantee maximum safety in the processing procedure,” explains Kronenberg.
Customer feedback confirms the high expectations of the hybrid solution and it has received very good reviews from users across the board, as it solves a number of potential problems: it compensates for tolerances when cutting the spacers to size, ensures that the frames are filled efficiently with desiccant, seals the joint all the way round and increases their stability – especially in the case of very large units, known as jumbo frames.
EK initially introduced the new technology for Chromatech Ultra spacers. The EK connector is now also available for the Thermix TX Pro profile from Alu Pro. “Also against the background of the extremely positive customer feedback, we are currently projecting designs for other manufacturers of spacers and will implement them promptly,” says Ralf M. Kronenberg. The hybrid connector is by no means intended to replace the well-known and proven EK SC L series without plastic bridge: “Rather, we are offering it as an alternative for special applications and ‘complicated’ processing,” specifies Kronenberg.
© Photo: LEINFELS