Further Expanding European Market Coverage for Fan Accessory Products

RACINE, Wis.May 10, 2017 Gardtec Incorporated, the leading global innovator, manufacturer and marketer of fan accessory products, including wire and plastic fan guards, fan/daisy chain fan power cords, plastic and metal fan filter assemblies, and fan tray assemblies for the OEM/Distribution market, today announced that it has finalized a wide reaching European distributor agreement with Essentra Components. This new agreement represents 20 new sales locations in Europe, Middle East and Africa, with an industry leading supplier, offering over 100,000 standard catalog items available immediately from stock. Essentra Components and Gardtec are well positioned to leverage extensive geographical distributor capacity, using sourcing, manufacturing and IT platforms to efficiently respond to our international customer base.

MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, arrives into the electronic cooling fan market as Gardtec manufacturers fan cords in the USA! Fan cords, daisy chain fan cords, fan power cords, used in the electronics market in a wide variety of applications, including cabinet cooling fan kits, fan tray assemblies, electronic enclosures, cooling fans for electronic cabinets, medial devices, telecommunication, servers systems, automation equipment, etc.. Fan cords in all configurations, have been manufactured in Asia for many years, then imported into the United Sates and used by American manufacturing companies. Today, through continuous production and tooling improvements, coupled with highly efficient American workers, Gardtec is please to announce the return of fan cord production to America. Gardtec now produces the broadest range of fan cords in the market, offering an unlimited range of styles, configuration and lengths. Daisy Chain fan cords can handle up to 10 individual cooling fans on a single fan cord assembly. Most standard fan cords are available directly from stock of over 500,000 pieces of finished inventory. Custom fan cords can be manufactured in 1-2 weeks. This can all be accomplished at price levels that are now often lower than product arriving from China. Daisy chain fan cords, as well as custom fan cords can be offered a quantities as low as 50 pieces, while standard fan cords can be purchased at www.gardteconline.com in quantities of 1 in order to meet our customers usage demands. In addition to fan cords, Gardtec is the Number 1 Brand in fan accessory products in the market. Wire fan guards, including the most popular 120mm fan guard, 80mm fan guard, 92mm fan guard, plastic fan filter assemblies for 40mm through 254mm size fans, fan tray assemblies, plastic finger guards for size from 40–162mm, cabinet cooling fan kits and metal filter assemblies to filter EMI/RFI.

September 2017, the plating world for fan guards will change dramatically. REACH has made the determination that it will sunset Cr6 Hexavalent Chromium from the plating process, a production process that has been in place for over 50 years. The Cr6, a known cancer causing agent will now be required to be discontinued in the actual manufacturing of the chrome plated fan guards. Up until this time, certain allowable limits were permitted, that has changed beginning September 2017. The problems will arise in the industry, given that other than Gardtec, there is no active plating company in the Chinese fan guard market, that either has the capital to make the change, or the technical ability to comply with these new REACH standards. Companies that either manufacture for the Euro market, or intend to market in the future will find themselves in violation of REACH rules. Unlike RoHS in which there are no specific fines, violations of REACH are governed by individual “States” within Europe and penalties can be extremely severe. 

Powder coated fan guards finger guards, fall outside of current REACH/RoHS standards for environmental issues and are considered safe. Electro Deposit fan guards also fall into the area which is considered both safe for the environment and production workers. Fan tray assemblies, fan power cords, daisy chain fan cords, do not typically contain substances which are included in either the REACH/RoHS banned materials categories.

REACH, which is the European Union set of regulations, with the driving purpose to address production and use of chemical substances in both the finished product, as well as the actual manufacturing environment for purposes of protecting human health and the environment.