The Differnences Between Laser Etching Keypad and Hollowing Out Silk Screen Printing Keypad

If the rubber keypad surface graphics & text are translucent white with colored surroundings (like the following silicone keypad), there are two ways to process the silicone button surface. One is laser engraved text, another is hollowing out the text by silk screen printing. The rubber keypad can have a backlight effect through these two processing ways.

What is Hollowing Out Silk Screen Printing?

To hollow out the graphics and text, a mesh is used to transfer ink into the rubber keypad surface, except that the graphics and text area is not permeable to the ink via a blocking stencil. Then moving the squeegee across the screen to fill the mesh interspace with ink. And a return movement will spread the ink into the silicone button surface.  

What is Laser Etching Silicone Keypad?

The text and graphics of laser engraving rubber keypad are engraved by laser. The characters are laser engraved one by one, so the efficiency is lower than silkscreen printing. Different from silk screen printing rubber buttons, the laser cutting keypad's base is silicone translucent white. The translucent white silicone keypad bases are sprayed with the color coating to block the light, and then be engraved the text or graphics on. So the engraved characters are light transmitting. 

From the following pictures, we can see that the edges of laser engraved characters are very clean, but the edges of silk screen printing characters are a little fringed. Laser etching includes color coating and laser engaving two processes. Hollowing out silk screen printing only need printing one step. Therefore, the cost of silk screen printing is lower than laser etching. With the lights under the silicone buttons, silk screen printing keypad may have some light leakage from the edge. However, the tacile of these two kinds of silicone buttons is similar.

Laser Etching Silicone Keypad                                           Silkscreen Printing Keypad

For the backlit silicone keypad with tanslucent text, if the budget is limited, silkscreen printing rubber keypad is recommended.