front panels
Self-adhesive front panels
Front panels are generally produced using special materials and screen printed. Due to their practicality and ease of application, they have replaced metal plates for affixing trademarks, technical data and operating diagrams. Topflight has highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art machinery and equipment, enabling it to produce high-quality products that can meet all kinds of production requirements: from small to medium and large runs. They leave plenty of room for designers’ imagination to create any shape, colour, graphic and size. All self-adhesive materials used in the manufacture of front panels are produced by Topflight and meet the strictest standards adopted to ensure maximum reliability and durability.
Technical solutions
The front panels can be made using different technical solutions, depending on the customer’s needs and the issues involved in application and use.
SERIGRAPHIC PRINTING
Self-adhesive front panels can be produced in any design and colour with the graphics screen-printed beneath the surface of the material. This option offers a wide range of choices, from simple two-colour printed panels to elaborate multi-colour printed panels. Printing beneath the surface of the material ensures excellent resistance to wear and scratches on the screen-printed parts.
Topflight Italia is able to screen print any colour from the Pantone or Ral catalogues, or can print specific shades requested by the customer, thanks to the use of a spectrophotometer, a special device capable of reading the colour sample and processing the respective ink formula to obtain the exact shade.
DIGITAL PRINTING
For rapid prototyping or low-volume production, digital printing can be used. This solution avoids the need for traditional printing equipment, thereby reducing equipment costs, and offers the possibility of achieving four-colour effects with high print resolution.
MATERIALS
The self-adhesive materials used to produce the front panels are manufactured directly by Topflight, thus guaranteeing high quality and reliability thanks to the strict controls they undergo during and at the end of the production cycle.
Topflight is therefore able to formulate and offer the most suitable adhesive for the surface and type of application, in order to solve any panel anchoring problems, especially in the most hostile and difficult environments.
Panels can also be made with areas without adhesive, for example, where there are buttons underneath, displays, or transparent areas.
The choice of aesthetic material to be used is made according to the technical characteristics of the application.
The materials are as follows:
1) POLYESTER – > TEXTURED – > GLOSSY SCRATCH-RESISTANT – > SEMI-GLOSS ANTI-REFLECTIVE AND SCRATCH-RESISTANT – > ANTIMICROBIAL WITH UV TREATMENT
2) POLYCARBONATE – > GLOSSY – > SATIN – > SCRATCH-RESISTANT AND ANTI-REFLECTIVE
DISPLAY WINDOWS AND LED
It is possible to create transparent areas that allow you to see the parts underneath. This makes it possible to obtain transparent windows, coloured with display filters (red, green, blue, smoked). Texturing is also normally carried out, a special anti-reflective and anti-scratch treatment that hardens and structurally modifies the aesthetic surface of polycarbonate or polyester. This operation is carried out with special machines in the presence of nitrogen, ensuring long-lasting treatment.
THERMOFORMING
On request, we can provide raised edges, keys, markings or other elements, thus highlighting the desired parts by touch. This technique also allows the creation of keyboards for blind people using the Braille alphabet. Topflight performs this operation using an exclusive system that guarantees maximum quality and durability.
Technical notes
For further information and any technical notes regarding the use of materials, please contact Topflight’s technical department.