Häfele Maxifix 35 HC worktop connector: The new lightness of being

(3/16/2007 12:00:00 AM) A trend is emerging in lightweight furniture construction: It now looks like the honeycomb panel is starting to gain ground as a worktop in the kitchen industry. Honeycomb panel is all but predestined to replace chipboard and other heavyweight materials. This new lightweight, high-tech material will make handling from transport to assembly considerably easier, and also saves money. Häfele has developed a connector solution that is ready for series production and therefore at the cutting edge of honeycomb panel hardware technology.

The Maxifix 35 HC worktop connector is suitable for making frameless connections at both sides of the front cut edges, such as the edges of a mitred 135° corner connection or a 90° corner connection with a frame at one side.

The new Maxifix 35 HC worktop connector is based on the well-known Maxifix 35 worktop connector and is appreciated for its ease of handling and integrated height adjusting facility. The Häfele connector for honeycomb worktops is available for panel thicknesses of 50 and 60 mm. Compared to conventional worktop connectors, the connecting bolt for the lightweight variant is made from hexagonal bar steel. The fitting consists of two plastic housing bushes, a Maxifix housing, the plastic height adjusting unit and a bolt with
pre-installed metal component and knurled nut.
The housing bushes are clipped into the standard drill holes and recesses of the panels to be connected. The vertical hole is so deep that the housing bushes finds additional grip in the top layer on the opposite side. They cling beneath the 8 mm top layer and are therefore fixed in place. 8 mm is currently the standard for worktops. The Maxifix housing and the bolt are then pushed in and held in the bushes by catch springs so that they do not fall out during final assembly.

The highlight – height adjustment
Since honeycomb panels can have tolerances of up to 1 mm for production reasons, it must be possible to compensate for positional differences in order to prevent unsightly joints. The Häfele development department has therefore developed a special height adjusting facility. The highlight: It does not require additional holes and is integrated in the drilling and routing pattern.
The height adjusting facility consists of two plastic parts that are slid onto the connecting bolt. The bolt is then inserted into the bush from above and the height adjusting facility is pressed in at the front between the honeycomb worktop top layers as far as it will go by hand. Following this pre-assembly operation the two panel parts can be connected and the height thereof aligned with a screwdriver (+/- 2 mm).

Drilling tolerances of +/- 9 mm can be compensated for by hand using the knurled nut on the bolt. The two honeycomb worktops are then pulled together by means of a 240° turn at the Maxifix housing with a size 6 Allen key and secured together with a positive fit.

Like conventional worktop connectors, a honeycomb panel version is also available with two bolts with different lengths (drilling dimensions: 42 – 51 mm and 80 - 89 mm).