The kind of coating used in your silicone rubber keypads is extraordinarily vital to lifetime of your product. The rubber or silicone key, when designed correctly, will final a really very long time. Nonetheless, in case you are utilizing printed legends the designer wants to think about the lifetime of the printing. The ink used must be from a top quality provider and cured correctly for lengthy life, however even then the printed legends will solely final for a restricted time. Will your printed keypad legends put on off earlier than the product life expires? The lifetime of the legends may be considerably elevated with considered one of a number of coatings choices. After investing in tooling and manufacturing, you do not need your keypads to degrade prematurely.

Here’s a listing of the widespread coatings out there for elastomeric keypads;

• Matte Oil Coating: A sprayed coating, almost invisible to the attention. That is the least costly choice to your silicone keypad and affords glorious endurance.
• PU Spray coating: Utilized to the complete keypad, this semi-premium coating is available in Matte or Gloss. It improves texture in your silicone keypad whereas providing a considerably longer life to your product and icons.
• PU Drip coating: This premium coating is dripped onto every keytop. This coating may be both laborious or smooth, matte or shiny. It’s nice for merchandise requiring a way of refinement and high quality. Not superb for bigger keys or convex shapes, nonetheless, on smaller keys this coating actually conveys a glance of distinction.
• UV coating: For merchandise more likely to be uncovered to prolonged daylight and the weather, you wish to contemplate a matte or gloss UV coating. RSP, Inc. UV coatings add years of life to printed icons and graphics on Custom Nonstick Silicone Mat silicone keypads.

Upon getting decided what coating you’ll use. It is crucial that you simply take a look at samples to find out the lifetime of the legend. If the provider is testing the legend life it is vital that a normal take a look at technique is developed. A punched tape attrition tester is often used to find out legend life.

If normal coatings don’t defend the legend properly sufficient (maybe in harsh environments) then you definitely would possibly contemplate a plastic key cap.

Silicone rubber keypads are one of the crucial widespread varieties of person interfaces. They give the impression of being nice and may be designed to have quite a lot of options together with backlighting, glow-in-the-dark inks, multi-colored key tops, small or massive key tops, and an extended life.