Custom silicone rubber keypad solution

Custom silicone keypads fully meet your design requirements with a wide range of solutions

Available as a single component or as part of an input system, Yuanyi's custom silicone rubber keypads offer virtually unlimited design flexibility, low cost, and reliable switching solutions for your pursuit of authentic operating tactility with pressure points and significant knocks. Silicone rubber keypad is a member of the silicone product family that is produced using high-temperature vulcanized silicone rubber as the main raw material through a molding and vulcanization molding process. The design possibilities for silicone rubber materials are endless, in contrast to membrane switches, there are no physical restrictions on their shape. Silicone rubber keyboards can be raised higher to achieve distinctive tactile feedback. The keypad also integrates with switch components such as printed circuit boards, membrane switches, plastic keycaps, etc. to provide more flexibility for customized solutions.

Why choose Yuanyi as your custom silicone rubber keypad manufacturer?

Yuanyyi has over 12 years of experience in silicone rubber keypad technology, specializing in providing customized unique specifications, high-quality, and very competitive silicone rubber keypad design, and manufacturing for customers' applications in various industries. Generally speaking, these silicone rubber keypads are produced by compression molding. We combine this process with extensive design options to form a relatively low-cost, rugged, versatile custom silicone rubber keypad. They fit the customer's assembly size, providing the best solution for various industry customers' applications from consumer electronics to medical devices.

Multiple Solutions for Custom Silicone Rubber Keypads

Silicone rubber keypads are practical solutions due to the inherent material characteristics of silicone, such as a wide operating temperature range, excellent weather resistance, corrosion resistance, and simple low-cost molding. They also provide longer keypad life and are suitable for applications in multiple fields such as aviation, electronics, automotive, and medical.

For all keypads used by electricians and mechanics, each key has a conductive pad underneath, sometimes two or more. Conductive silicone rubber keypads are made of carbon pills or all kinds of combinations of conductive materials, or even gold pills. Gold pills have a lower resistance, which reduces power consumption and extends the working time of the device, especially for battery-powered devices. When the switch is pressed, the conductive pills at the bottom of the silicone rubber keyboard will contact the contact points on the PCB to create a short circuit.

More attractive options for custom silicone rubber keypads include:

Screen printing inks

Various coatings (from varnish to PU)

Laser labeling

Actuation force and travel

Multiple colors and lighting per keyboard

Stainless steel front panel and keycaps

Flat keyboard bottom structure

Custom Silicone Rubber Keypads - Combining Multiple Technologies

The flexibility of custom silicone rubber keypads also lies in combining multiple technologies. For example, a portion is reserved for the display, while its surface is covered with PE film except for the keys. This type of keypad is suitable for medical technology and healthcare fields that require clearer touch feedback and good cleanability.

We can develop customized solutions for specific applications, especially in dimension, operating environment, or design. To achieve a balance between meeting requirements and costs, our field application engineers work closely with membrane keyboard experts to provide easy-to-understand on-site support and effective coordination.

How do you quickly design your custom silicone rubber keypad?

Providing complete 3D drawings or physical objects can achieve rapid mass production. Sometimes you only have concepts, our experienced engineering team will turn your ideas into design drawings and use rapid prototyping technology to complete the delivery of silicone rubber keypad prototypes in a few days.

Common problems and solutions for Custom Silicone Rubber Keypads

Silicone rubber keypads are difficult to de-mold

During the production process of silicone rubber keypads, demolding is the most critical step during molding. Silicone rubber keypads often encounter the problem of difficult demolding, sometimes because the mold is not well made, sometimes because of improper operation of technical personnel, and some because of unconventional shapes.

How to demold the silicone rubber keypad quickly?

Surface treatment of the mold (only suitable for frosted surface products): Sandblast and wash the new mold (upper and lower mold) that has just been discharged.
Spray demolding treatment: Use a spray bottle to spray the demolding agent on the surface of the mold.
Add an appropriate amount of internal demolding agent: Add some demolding agent and rapid vulcanizing agent when mixing silicone so that the silicone can obtain stronger fluidity.
Adjust the machine's pressure and the temperature of the upper or lower mold: The higher the temperature, the faster the silicone rubber keypad molding time, but if the temperature is too high, it will cause the problem of edge bursting.
Reduce the number of exhaust times: If the silicone rubber keypad has a simple structure, it can reduce the exhaust twice.
Add discharge troughs: Additional discharge chute allows residual material to be discharged.

The silk screen of the silicone rubber keypad falls off

In the processing of silicone rubber keyboards, screen-printing is an important process. Screen printing can print various patterns on the surface of silicone, which makes silicone rubber keypads more competitive and more popular and recognized by customers. However, the characters on the silicone rubber keypads printed by screen printing often fall off after being wiped off or become blurred after being used several times.

How to ensure the quality of silk screen printing on silicone rubber keypads?

Use the right ink: Use suitable high-quality silicone ink for silk screen printing to ensure the wear resistance, peel strength, and brightness of the ink on the silicone surface.
The silicone ink must be completely cured: After silk screen printing, the silicone generally needs high-temperature baking and curing. Check the set temperature and time of the tunnel furnace to ensure that the silk screen ink is completely cured.
The surface kept clean: The surface of the silicone rubber keypad should be kept clean during operation or subsequent processing and storage.
Appropriate amount of release agent: The amount of release agent used during molding meets the use standards.

Silicone rubber keypad jam or dead keys

When you use a product with a silicone rubber keypad, sometimes the key will not bounce after being pressed because the key force is too strong and the speed is too fast. The main reason for the jammed key is that the matching gap between the key and the shell is not designed properly.

How to ensure that the silicone rubber keypad will not have jamming or dead keys?

Use high-quality silicone material
The pressing force should be in the center of the key
Appropriate draft angle
Clean all burrs or flashes on the shell before assembly
The gap between the silicone rubber keypad key and the panel is designed to be within a moderate range
The actuation force and travel of the silicone rubber keypad are designed reasonably

Silicone rubber key size enlarges or deviates

Due to the shrinkage rate of silicone materials, the size of silicone rubber keypads cannot be too precise, but sometimes the size enlarges or the deviation does not meet the initial requirements of the silicone rubber keypad design.

How to deal with that if the silicone rubber keypad becomes larger or deviates in dimension?

Appropriate molding temperature and pressure
Use a well-designed mold
Do not use rubber materials that have been placed for a long time

Contact our expert engineers today to start designing your custom rubber keypad

Yuanyi is a leading Chinese manufacturer of custom silicone rubber keypads for numerous consumer electronics and industrial applications, providing long life, short travel, low cost, and reliable custom interface solutions. The design flexibility of our custom silicone rubber keypads is almost unlimited including custom key size (length, width, height), legends, colors, and a combination of various technologies (screens, membrane switch). Tell us your unique specifications, and specific application requirements, or fill out our online form, and we will work closely with you to support your project. Or send an email to jazz@yuanyicommodity.com.