What Are Silicone Rubber Keypads?
Not all keypads are designed with a hard plastic shell. Some are made of silicone rubber. Also known as elastomeric keypads, silicone rubber keypads have become increasingly popular in recent years. You'll find them in a variety of switching applications, including TVs, remote controls, video game consoles, kids' toys, human machine interfaces (HMIs) and more. Unless you're familiar with electrical switching technology, though, you might be wondering what is a silicone rubber keypad.
The Basics of Silicone Rubber Keypads
A silicone rubber keypad is a keypad solution for electrical switches that's characterized by the use of silicone rubber material. This is important because silicone rubber, as you may know, is soft and flexible. When you press down on the material, it deforms before reverting back to its original shape. Using these properties, silicone rubber keypads offer an attractive alternative to traditional keypad solutions.
While there are different ways to produce a silicone rubber keypad, most share some common design characteristics. The top of the keypad features a switch button made of silicone rubber. Below this button is a space later, followed by an electrical contact. Pressing the silicone rubber keypad causes the underlying electrical contact on the button to touch the electrical contact below the button. As the two contacts touch, it creates a circuit, thereby telling the device to which it's connected that a key press occurred.
