Epoxy Resin Coating

What is Epoxy Resin Coating?

Epoxy resin coating is a coating compounds composed of two distinct elements: epoxy resins and polyamine hardeners (also known as catalysts).

When the resin is mixed with the hardener, a chemical reaction occurs that produces crosslinking of the elements during curing.

When the epoxy coating is fully cured, the final product is a durable, rigid plastic coating with many desirable mechanical properties.

Epoxy resin coating is made up with resin and curing agent. Epoxy resin coating is a protective transparent epoxy resin coating, which is commonly used in silicone keyboard to protect the key surface.

This thick epoxy coating gives the silicone keyboard a hard plastic feel and shiny look.

Epoxy resin coating extends the life of the artwork on the top of the silicone keypad because of its excellent wear resistance and protects the top of the key from chemicals, dirt and oil and crash.

Silicone keyboard with epoxy coating top key sets your product apart from the competition because it is visually more attractive than a standard silicone keyboard key top.

This method is used as an alternative to producing custom silicone keyboard with plastic keytops. 

The costs associated with producing a custom silicone keypad with an epoxy coating are significantly less when compared to the costs associated with producing a custom silicone keyboard with plastic keycaps. 

Because the plastic keycaps will need additional plastic injection molding, which cost is high.So applying an epoxy crown to keytops is both visually appealing and economical.

If your silicone keyboard are heavily or exposed to wear environment, we would suggest to use epoxy coated silicone keyboard.

Note:Epoxy resin coating can be devided into soft epoxy resin coating and hard epoxy resin coating.If the silicone keyboard is pressed frequently, it is suggested to use soft epoxy resin coating, which has the better touching feeling.

In addition to the epoxy resion protective coating, there are other protective coatings for silicone keyboard.

It is extremely important to apply the correct protective coating to silicone keyboard, based on their applications and intended use. Silicone keyboard protective coatings include silicone coating, polyurethane, parylene, epoxy, and clear coat, among others.

Clear Matte Oil Coating- Lowest cost protective coating. This coating typically is applied for low use applications.It offers a smooth, silky finish that helps reduce dirt and dirt attraction.It is touch feeling is smoothest.

Polyurethane(PU) Coating– Protective clear coating applied to 100% of the keypad. Wear resistant for very high use applications, and in some cases can increase abrasion resistance of graphics by 20 times.Its touch feeling is rougher than matt oil coating.But it is difficult to see the difference by eyes, only can feel difference by your hands.

Clear Glossy Oil Coating- It is glossy and shiny.Its protection is better than Polyurethane(PU) Coating, but lower than epoxy coating.

Plastic Keycap(P+R keypad)- Plastic keycaps+ rubber button pad, which will choose ABS, PC, TPU and other material by plastic injection molding.According to requirements, it can do silkscreen printing or laser etched symbols on the plastic keycaps.Generally, its cost is very high, because of a additional plastic injection molding of keycaps.