History Of The Company

In 1969, Elnik Instruments, Inc. was established as a wholly owned subsidiary of W.H. Joens & Co. GMBH, Germany to market the company's line of temperature controllers, recorders, and programmers. These instruments were designed for use on industrial furnaces, vacuum furnaces, and a variety of plastic extrusion and injection molding machinery.

In 1982, Elnik began to focus its efforts on the manufacture of complete Vacuum Furnaces systems. Between 1982 and 1985 thirty furnaces were built for the Raytheon Company, Waltham, MA for the manufacture of traveling wave tubes (TWT) for the Patriot Missile Project. By 1986 the demand for custom vacuum furnaces far exceeded the demand for instruments and a new company, Elnik Systems, was formed to meet the demand.

In 1992, a "one-step" debind and sinter vacuum furnace was developed to meet the needs of the metal injection molding market. The MIM 3000 provided a cost-effective alternative to the two-furnace technology then being used. To date more than 65 of these highly successful furnaces have been sold.

In 2002, Elnik Systems and PVA TePla AG of Asslar, Germany, have partnered to form PVA MIMtech, LLC. This new firm will operate out of the existing Elnik location. The facility is state of the art and along with manufacturing capabilities, houses a complete research and development and technical center. PVA MIMtech, LLC has three main objectives:

First, PVA MIMtech will continue to manufacture the most advanced MIM furnaces in the world for one-step debinding and sintering of metal injection-molded parts. To date, Elnik has produced more than 65 MIM furnaces for customers worldwide. The main areas of use for the furnaces are aerospace, automotive, medical, dental, watch/fashion/sports, environmental, electrical/electronic, precision mechanics and defense industries. All Elnik furnaces are constantly upgraded to include the latest technological innovations, all introduced through experiences gained at DSH Technologies, LLC.

DSH Technologies, an affiliate, shares space with the company and provides comprehensive metallurgical assistance and turnkey production services. Although the DSH MIM furnaces are primarily used for product development and process optimizing, existing customers and those entering the MIM/PIM field can rent the furnace on a per-use basis for short-term production needs. For more information, visit their webpage here

Second, the company will introduce the furnaces PVA Tepla, AG manufactures to the North American market. PVA specializes in five different high-temperature vacuum furnaces as follows:
(1) The COD vacuum pressure sinter (sinter-HIP) furnaces are used for delubing, vacuum sintering, and subsequent isostatic densification for metals and ceramics. PVA has gained world leadership in the hard metal industry with this line of furnaces.
(2) The COV vacuum heat-treat furnaces with graphite heaters are used for brazing, reducing, out gassing and debinding, sintering of hard metals and non-oxide ceramics, CVD processes, reduction and out gassing of water atomized metal powders, cleaning and degassing of graphite parts, and nitriding or carburizing for powder production.
(3) The MOV vacuum heat-treat furnaces with refractory metal hot zones are used for brazing, diffusion bonding, out gassing of electronic or radiation tube components, stress-free annealing, sintering of heavy metal such as tungsten and high-temperature alloys.
(4) The IOV vacuum heat-treat furnaces with induction coil heaters are used for all high-temperature processes where degasification, graphitizing, distillation, carburization, impregnating, and infiltration process are required.
(5) The VGS vacuum melting and casting furnaces are used for melting and casting under high vacuum or different gas atmospheres for alloying, purification, melting, and processing of noble metals and highly alloyed steels. For more information, visit their webpage here

Third, the company's product line now covers the broad spectrum of vacuum heat treating, brazing, annealing, sintering, hipping, and one-step debinding and sintering of metal injection molded parts (MIM) for today's advanced manufacturing requirements.

The joint venture between Elnik and PVA has created a truly global company with manufacturing facilities in the USA and Germany and a support and service network worldwide.