How to create soft-touch enclosure, like the one found on some cell phones

[tega85]

Hello,

I am an industrial engineer and I am designing a fancy wifi router for an industrial application. My client wants a soft-touch surface finish on a wifi router as the one found on high on a computer mouse, cellphones(nexus 5) or other soft-touch consumer items. I have been working with an overseas vendor to produce very nice matte-finish prototypes which are very nice, but are unfortunately not soft-touch like my client requested. I have done some research in the past and many people referenced that there is a special polyurethane coating that goes overtop of injection molded parts to create the soft touch feeling.

Does anyone know what paint is used to create this soft touch feeling?

Thanks for your responses!

 

[IRstuff]

Most of those are CRAP, maybe all of them; I've so many tools and instruments that had "soft-touch" coatings that turned into gooey/sticky/tarry messes. Argghh! May whoever came with those rot in ergonomic hell. And remnants of the coatings are annoyingly difficult to remove.
> tire pressure gauge
> Kawasaki electric drill/rotary saw/etc.
> remote control
> steel tape ruler container


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[IRstuff]

I would think soft-touch would be wasted on a router; it's not like I'm caressing my router all the time, even if were it best in the world, which it ain't.

Some soft-touch surfaces seem to survive, but I'm unclear why, or why not. We bought more than a dozen Logitech M325 wireless mice that have survived for more than 5 years with no problems.

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[TugboatEng]

Silicone based coating is likely the most durable soft-touch. I found a manufacturer that produces polysiloxane coatings for buttons and such for the automotive OEMs. I can't remember the name but I'll look to see what I can dig up.

 

[Pud]

Soft touch coatings are usually produced by overmoulding the elastomer. This is usually done in a two (or more) shot machine. It can also be done by making a rigid part first and then manually placing it another tool to overmould.
Care needs to be taken that the materials chosen give suitable adhesion as not all pairs do. If the case is ABS then there plenty of suitable elastomers.
Google "twin shot moulding" or even "twin shot molding" to see the process.



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