Difference between Silkscreen Printing and Pad Printing Silicone Rubber Button Pad

There are several ways to achieve silicone rubber button pad characters or pattern.Printing and laser etching are the mainly ways.And printing can be divided into silk screen printing and pad printing.

What are silkscreen printing and pad printing?

Silkscreen Printing

Silkscreen printing is a process that uses a woven mesh plate to transfer ink to the button pad.Make the screen plate according to the desired characters or pattern.

Pour the ink on the screen plate, the ink will pass through part of the screen mesh, escaped printing on the silicone button pad.  The rest of the screen mesh is blocked, ink cannot go through.  Under the action of no external force, the ink will not leak through the mesh to the silicone button pad, and when the scraper with a certain pressure and tilt angle scraping ink, it will be transferred to the silicone button pad underneath through the screen plate so as to realize the copy of the characters or pattern. 

                                                                 Silkscreen Printing Process

Pad Printing

Pad printing also called as transfer printing.Pad printing is the process of transferring the images or words onto a 3D object.  It consists of three main parts: the laser etching plate, a silicone rubber pad to transfer the image, and the positioning tool.  An image is etched onto a flat plate, which is then filled with ink.

The silicone head does not absorb the ink and it is very soft, which can adapt to irregular shaped surfaces.

So the pad printing is usually used to print images or words onto more difficult products or surfaces, for example, when the button surface is uneven with curved surface.

                                                                                Pad Printing Process

What are the differences between silkscreen printng and pad printing?

-Working principle.

Pad printing: The pattern or characters engraved on the steel plate are transferred to the silicone button pad through the rubber head, similar to the stamping .

Screen printing: By scraping the pressure of the ink from the screen of the mesh into the surface of silicone button pad to form the pattern.

-Printing area  

Pad printing: There is limit of pad printing area.

Silkscreen printing: printing area is basically unlimited, the cost of consumables (screen) is low, and can be reused.

-Button pad shape

Pad printing: there is no limit to the shape, plane, surface, wave surface, as long as the rubber head deformation can be printed.

Screen printing: The printing surface of the button pad should be flat or regular surface  

-Ink layer  

Pad printing: pad printing ink layer is thin, can be printed on any surface, showing very good color expression and printing adaptability. 

Screen printing: the ink layer of screen printing is thick, the printed pattern has a strong three-dimensional sense, and the concave and convex sense can be touched by hand. It is suitable for the surface printing of high-grade products. The color expression is very good, multicolor overprinting is more troublesome. The button pad surface should be a regular plane or flat.And there are certain limitations in the scope of printing.