Metal Dome & Dome Array blog

National Day Holiday

Posted on September 30, 2022 by Love Dome

Time goes by so quickly, after a short holiday of Autumn Festival, our National Day Holiday (October 1^st,2022) also on its way.

National Day is a very important and special festival for Chinese people, it has a great significance for us, it is not only the birthday for our motherland, also is the great day of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and 2022 is the 73^rd anniversary.

On October 1st, 1949, Chairman Mao, officially declared the formation of the People’s Republic of China before a crowd of 300,000 in Tiananmen Square while waving the newly created Chinese flag. The declaration followed a civil war in which communist forces emerged victorious over the Nationalist government. On December 2, 1949, at a meeting of the Central People’s Government Council, October 1st as National Day was ratified by the First National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

Chairman-Mao-declared-the-formation-of-People’s-Republic-of-China

Traditionally, there are four mainly customs to celebrate this special day.

Decorating with colorful neon light and five-star red flag

Every National Day in China, enterprises and institutions will hang colorful neon lights or five-star red flags with the slogan of “celebrate the National Day” to celebrate it, and the square is placed on festive bonsai and balloons, with a happy atmosphere to meet the National Day.

Decorating-with-colorful-neon-light-and-five-star-red-flag

Golden Week

Since from 1999, the Chinese government expanded the celebrations by several day to a seven-day holiday, that is called “Golden Week” similar to Japan’s. Because it is a second-long vacation in the whole year (Spring festival is the longest holiday in year), most of people will travel to other cities or countries, or tourist attractions to enjoy a relaxing holiday with their families and friends, that’s why in National Day holiday, every place is crowded, especially those famous scenic spots or cities.

Military parade

To display China’s armed forces and build national confidence & pride, since the founding of People’s Republic of China, we held total 11 times military parade between 1949 to 1959, but after the reform and opening up, in September 1960, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and The State Council decided to reform the system of National Day ceremonies in line with the principle of “practicing strict economy and building the nation with diligence”, implementing “one-small celebration every five years, one-big celebration every ten years, and a military parade every big celebration”. And until to 1984, central committee decided to recover military parade, so we had a great celebration for our motherland’s 35th anniversary that year. (The last military parade in China is in 2019 year.)

Flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen

Although there is a flag-raising at Tiananmen every day in Beijing, the flag-raising ceremony on National Day will be particularly grand, and the flag-raising time is 06:10am Beijing time.

Normally Chinese people use this time to stay with relatives and to travel together. Visiting amusement parks and watching special television programs on the holiday are also popular activities, and nowadays, holding a wedding in National Day holiday also is popular and common by far. In my impression, when watch the military parade on TV with my family and friends in National Day, I feel so proud to be a part of a prosperous nation.

So to celebrate such a great day for our motherland, Best Technology also have a short-long holiday to greet its arrival, and below is our holiday schedule:

Close time: October 1^st -5^th

Resume to work: October 6^th

Due to the holiday, lead time of any circuit boards (FR4 PCB, MCPCB, Ceramic PCB, Rigid-flex Circuit) will be postponed 2-5 days, if any order urgently, please tell our sales reps and we will communicate to get a better solution, thanks for your kindly understanding.

Posted in Chinese Culture | Tagged national day | Leave a comment

Three main factors that affect the light emitting effect of products

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Love Dome

Although we know LGF (light guide film) can have very good light emitting effect, but the scientific and accuracy of the light emitting effect can’t be detected by using standard instrument, because of its structure characteristics that we need to repeat and debug LGF product samples, so we need to find the factors that influence the LGF emitting effect that can avoid bad product light or uneven.

As shown below, the number keys 1,4, and 7 on the left are significantly darker than the number keys on the right, and the X, arrow character key on the right, is also significantly darker.

But once you find the reason and adjust it, you can turn it into the picture below. The brightness is even and the product looks comfortable.

Why the light emitting effect is so different with same product?

If the light conduction effect of the product is not good, it will bring the following problems:

1. The visual effect of the product is affected, such as stray light, astigmatism, light leakage, ghost and other problems, which will make customers feel that the quality of the product is not good, and thus affect the customer’s experience of using the product.

2. It will increase the cost of product return, scrapping and maintenance, and seriously affect the company’s reputation.

3. Products gradually lose competitiveness and lose customers and markets.

4. The light guide of the product is not good, which not only affects the appearance, but also makes it inconvenient for customers to use, and naturally, they will not buy again

When we have a product with poor light guide effect, we usually think to change the whole product design or increase the qty of LED lights, such as adding LED lights in the dark area of the product. Although this method can solve the problem, it is time-consuming and energy consuming, and increases the cost, but it may not get the desired effect. So, we still need to understand why light is bad, then could solve the fundamental problem.

The reasons of poor light emitting effect of products:

1, It is related to the raw material differences between material PC and TPU of light guide film (LGF). When we choose raw materials, it is not the thinner or thicker with better, the thinner PC material will be with the greater light loss, but the feeling will be better, the thicker material will be with the smaller light loss, but the feeling will be poor, so we need to choose the right material according to the product.

2, The poor assembly of LGF and LED leads to poor light guide effect. Mainly due to the following reasons:

A: As structure in below, the thickness of LGF exceeds the height of LED, the light emitted by LED cannot shine on LGF well, so the light emitting effect is poor. The result may be there is light in the near light area, but no light at all in the far light area.

B: As structure in below, the distance between LGF and LED is greater than 0.2mm, and the LED light energy cannot shine on LGF well, the light emitting effect is poor. The phenomenon is that there may be a light in the near light area, but the light effect in the far light area is very poor.

The distance between normal LGF and LED should not exceed 0.2mm, as shown below:

C: As structure below, part of LGF has covered the LED, which has the worst light emitting effect, because the light cannot reach the light guide film.

D: As structure below, the fitting distance between LED and LGF should not exceed 0.2mm, otherwise there will be a dark area in the side far light area.

E: As photo below, the vertical distance between the LED and the light area of character should be kept at least 4mm, so could ensure that there is no bright spot near the light area.

F: As photo below, the number of LED should be determined according to the size and height of the product, and the luminance of LED should be at least 1000MCD.

G: The choice of LED location, according to the keypad style, will be evenly distributed in the center of DOME or light guide membrane (top light) or not distributed in the center (side light). If the LED location is not well selected, the light guide effect will also be affected.

3, The different production process of LGF also greatly affects its light emitting effect. The quality of the production process is the last key factor that affects the light emitting effect of LGF, and the most important is the light emitting dot placement on the light medium material. Light from the LED is scattered from the front of the light guide plate through these micro structured dots.

After read above, we believe you should have a direction for how to solve the problem of poor light guide effect of products, this is the purpose that we write this article, hope it could help you a lot.

Some customers may not use LGF to guide light, even though you should also have an understanding about LGF. If there are products that need to guide light, you can try to use LGF to save cost.

And in the next section, I will introduce the production process of LGF and the testing equipment needed; how different that the light conduction effect of products with LGF and without LGF, etc.

Welcome to contact us if you have any questions about LGF.

Posted in LGF dome array, metal dome array, metal dome related | Leave a comment

Happy Moon-cake Day

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Love Dome

Today is the 15^th day of August (according to the Lunar Calendar) is the Moon Cake Day, one the most important traditional festival in China (Others are Dragon Boat Festival and Spring Festival). And the official name is Mid-Autumn Festival, because it is happened in the middle of Autumn. Family member will come back from their working city to their hometown, to enjoy happy & warm time with their families, and of course will eat the moon-cake and drink the tea.

In order to thank all employees for their dedicated working and efforts, Best Technology prepared handle-made Mid-Autumn moon cakes to express our best wishes and thanks to our staffs.

All staffs from Best Technology received the delicious Moon cakes and everyone is permeated with warm and harmonious festive atmosphere. As a member of Best Tech, I felt full of happiness when received the cakes.

The moon cake not only represents the Mid-Autumn greetings and blessing to employees, but also shows the loving care from management for us. It not only brought laughter, also brought full of touching and motivation to everyone. I believe that in the future, we will cheer up, make persistent efforts, and create a more brilliant tomorrow for the company!

Best Tech is a big family and everyone is a member of this family that we love and help each other.

Since the establishment of company in 2006, Best Technology always pay highly attention to the healthy & happy life of our staffs, in every traditional festival in China, we will receive different beautiful gifts and best wishes.

Best Tech is a big family and everyone is a member of this family that we love and help each other.

At the same time, all the people in Best Technology wish our customers a merry Mid-Autumn Festival, bliss and happiness, wish you a perfect life just like the round moon in Moon-cake Day!!

Also, Best will close for Moon-cake Day from Sept 10-12^th, and resume to office on Sept 13^th, if you have any inquiry, please contact us.

Posted in Chinese Culture | Tagged Chinese holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival | Leave a comment

What are the Main Applications of Different Metal Domes?

Posted on February 25, 2022 by Love Dome

We all know that there are four types of tactile metal domes, including four-leg, circle, triangle and oblong. And these domes play different roles in various fields, even some of them can be substitute for each other. However, they virtually have their main application fields, which is more or less an unwritten rule.

Four-leg Metal Dome

In terms of structure, the height of four-leg domes is often higher than that of three other domes, hence the click feeling is also better. And four-leg domes are now mainly concentrated on the relatively large ones ranging from 5 mm to 20 mm, which is one of its advantages. With greater click feeling and longer life, this kind of snap dome is also called membrane switch dome, for which is most commonly used in membrane switch.

Circle Metal Dome

Contrary to four-leg snap dome, circle metal dome, or round dome, focuses on the relatively small ones like 2.5 mm-5 mm. Thus, when there is only a small space on the PCB, the circle snap dome is the best option. And because most of the domes used in the phone are round dome, it is also named mobile phone dome.

Triangle Metal Dome

The advantage of triangle snap dome is that it can get the maximum force under the same diameter in comparison with other domes, which means it needs to be pressed hard to be conductive, so as to avoid misoperation especially in industrial control. Therefore, triangle dome metal is extremely suitable for industrial controls, like control panel.

Oblong Metal Dome

Oblong dome is seldom used. Because of its shape, oblong dome metal, also called rectangle snap dome, can be used in a long and narrow space compared with other three domes. And it is mainly used to be mounted on printed circuit boards, and other products such as membranes, panels, and so forth.

In a word, although it is not stipulated that only one of these snap domes can be used in a field, which indicates that they may be alternatives for each other in accordance with the specific uses and requirements, they generally still have their main application fields. And we, Best Technology, are an experienced electronic company so that if you would like to know more about metal domes or snap domes, you are welcome to contact us.

Posted in Circle metal dome, Four leg metal dome, Membrane Switches, metal dome array, metal dome related, Metal Domes, Oblong Metal Dome, Triangle metal dome | Tagged metal dome | Leave a comment

Item	Hot-pressing process	Laser process	Printing process
Working method	A mold is used to hot press the luminescent dot on the surface of LGF	The LGF surface is marked with a laser dot	White luminescent ink is used to print dots on the surface of the LGF
Samples production time	Mold making is required, and the lead time would be a little longer	The lead time is shorter	Need to do dot screen, using screen printing, sample speed is slow
Dot size	Min 0.05mm	/	Min 0.15mm
Press key request	Suitable for all keys	Suitable for not very transparent keys	Suitable for all keys
Adjustment of uniformity	The adjustment is complicated and the mold needs to be re-opened	The adjustment is fast, but unstable	Adjustment speed is not fast, need to re-make the screen
Production efficiency	Open mold for production, faster production	Laser dotting speed is slow, production is slow	Screen printing, faster speed

Item	PC material	TPU material
Hardness	Around HR140	HR70-80
Color	Transparent	Transparent
Price	/	2-3 times compared with PC
Processing dot mode	Printing, molding, rolling	Printing, radium carving
Influence on hand sensation after assembling keys	The click feeling of the key decrease by 5~10%	The click feeling of the key decrease by 2~6%
Transmittance	>89%	78%
Brightness	higher(better)	lower(worse)
Thickness of material	0.1mm, 0.125mm, 0.175mm, 0.25mm, 0.38mm, 0.5mm	0.1mm, 0.15mm
Resistance to chemical corrosion	The corrosion resistance is worse, but because the light guide film is a built-in component, it doesn’t come into contact with as many chemicals, so this factor is not considered as much	Corrosion resistance is better, so it is more suitable for external parts, external parts contact with chemical reagents will be more, such as watchband
Using impact	PC will not have issue of yellow	TPU will be became yellow after 2 years used, and it affects brightness and transmittance

Metal Dome & Dome Array – Best Technology

National Day Holiday

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