Front face sticker panel material used in commercial equipment? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: sv3ora
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 27, 2021, 11:51:42 pm
content: Hi, I want to design a panel for a product and I have seen these panels that many commercial equipment use.The attached photo (taken in an angle to see the matte glare) shows what I am talking about.It seems that this is a kind of a sticker, printed on the back side (the side that sticks onto the panel) of a transparent film. And that film has a kind of roughness onto it (matte like).Do you know what is this material, or what is this procedure called?Are there any machines of lower cost that can be purchased for this result?Or any other info you have on it.

author: WattsThat
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 01:17:00 am
content: The HP front panels are a 3M product.I’m not familiar with the current product numbers and names but the generic film product tradename back in the eighties was Scotchcal. It starts out as a clear sheet, textured on one side, smooth on the other. The smooth back side is subjected to a multi-pass screen printing process, building up the colors, one pass per color. After all the text and legends are complete, the back is roll coated with the background color. When the imaging is complete, it is laminated with a double sided acrylic adhesive sheet. Depending upon size and layout, all the holes and the general outline are then cut with a steel rule die.It was prohibitively expensive for small runs back in the day. You needed thousands of pieces to justify the cost, the most expensive part is the steel rule die. Perhaps today it is able to be done in small runs with ink jet printing and laser cutting, I have no idea if it is possible but I’m sure 3M knows. They have many value add partners that do low and high volume runs. You still see the stuff everywhere on appliances, some with keypads of various types and it’s still around on some Keysight equipment.

author: ajb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 02:31:36 am
content: They're commonly referred to as "lexan" or just polycarbonate overlays. As WattsThat says they are reverse printed. Digital printing is common these days, as is laser cutting for small runs. There's still a substantial price curve because of the setup involved but not as bad as with screen printing and die cutting.The equipment to do this sort of thing the commercial way isn't going to be cheap or readily accessible. You can do screen printing yourself, but it takes some skill/experience to get good results and will be time consuming, and I expect the inks will need heat or uv curing. The adhesive can probably be applied in sheet form, and I guess a fiber laser would cut it (CO2 doesn't work well on polycarbonate), or you could use an xacto knife if you have the patience.So I guess if you have the time and some equipment on hand you could do it yourself, but it's kind of like making a PCB in that having a specialist do it is going to be way easier/faster and get you a much better result.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 03:22:07 am
content: The key phrase to Google for islexan labels. This will bring up countless shops that can print them for you, likely including some local ones (which are good for handholding on your first job.) Prices actually aren't that scary, even for small quantities.There will be several different material quality levels to choose from, but for control panel labels you will generally want the best stuff you can get. Plastics that are rated for outdoor sun exposure will hold up well over many years indoors.

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 03:25:38 am
content: laser print on paper, laminate, attach with spray adhesive, and cut with scalpel?

author: Domagoj T
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 06:12:11 am
content: Recently I was part of a project where we printed something similar, perhaps a bit thinner and more flexible than front panel stuff. It was a vinyl sticker, inkjet printed and then laminated with transparent matte layer. It proved to be quite durable and very nice looking. The print itself was sharp, clear, with nicely saturated colors. We had an option to have it machine cut but opted to cut it by hand since it was a very irregular shape that had to be stuck to an equally irregular base, so the graphics were a bit larger than base and we just trimmed it. We needed about 200 small holes in the final product so I made a small tool that I just pressed against the sticker and twisted to cut out the circle. All in all it was quite large format print (an "infinite" roll 1m width, 2m^2 in total) and cost, if I remember correctly, about $100.I don't know about the cost of machine cutting, since we didn't end up using it, but it certainly was not prohibitively expensive. It is a CNC process (think Cricut vinly cutter on steroids), not die cut.The shop that made it for us makes signs and graphics for store fronts and vehicles, so you may want to look at those as well.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 10:04:49 am
content: Quote from: WattsThat on March 28, 2021, 01:17:00 amNowadays most companies doing stickers / front labels can make these. As others noted these are reasonably affordable but there are design costs and startup costs. The base can be from 3M but that is just the adhesive layer. On top of that there will be a foil which is printed using an inkjet printer.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 28, 2021, 11:57:39 am
content: The other thing they’re commonly called is “graphic overlays”, and there are Chinese companies that do those, too, just like PCBs.