Silcos Silicone Keypads

Silicone at the touch of a button. That makes an impact.

Silicone keypads have conquered the industry. In many areas of use, they are replacing traditional switches. And no wonder: compared to other technologies, the benefits - inexpensive, durable, reliable - are evident. In addition, forms and colors are nearly unlimited. The entertainment and telecommunications industries wouldn’t know what to do without them.

Silicone keypads are used to complete a direct or indirect “switch function” with a circuit board or other circuit which lies beneath it.

Types of silicone keypads

We manufacture customer specific keypads (printed, non-printed / with or w/o background illumination) with optimum tactility, high friction resistance and long life out of solid (HTV) and liquid silicone (LSR and/or LIM).
A further keypad variant is the P+R (plastic + rubber keypad) technology, which uses hard plastic caps atop the silicone keypad. Far reaching design variants in form and colour for the key caps are available.

Electric contact points

The electric contact of keypads is effected via various contact media, depending on the desired contact resistance.

Carbon printing (< 500 Ohm)
Standard carbon pills (< 50 Ohm)
Low-resistance pills (< 10 Ohm)
ULR pills (< 2 Ohm)
Gold pills (< 1 Ohm)

Tactile characteristics

The definition of specific tactile requirements with the assistance of force-stroke curves. Depending on the desired tactility, the force-stroke specification is implemented directly in the construction of the keypad or in connection with polydomes (polyester snap shields) or metal domes.

Polyester and metal snap domes.

Many samples are available to select the desired tactility of the keypads. Thanks to our close collaboration with customers, we are very familiar with the requirements of the marketplace.

more information on snap domes