The Keyboard Dishwasher HowTo

[Guru]

http://www.rabidhardware.net/howtos/kbmod/index.shtml

[Wombat]

I knew people that would actually wash their keyboards in the dishwasher. They used cheap keyboards, and it was cheaper for them to replace the keyboards that didn't survive the wash than to actually pay someone to wash the keyboards by hand.

[Greebe]

Actually washing keyboards or most anything else elelctronic (exception being HD's) has been done for decades.

One place I worked at we had a cleaning room specifically for this purpose. Just pop into the dishwasher with Cascade (or similar) powder. To dry we had a refridgerator wired up as a heat box and a temperature controller set to ~180-200f. Either using that or a hairdryer to get it done in a jiffy.

[Bohrn]

seriously?? Just put it in the dishwasher?? I ask because here at work, being an automotive shop, our keyboards get unholy crud on em alot and all day long. One of my staff, being the helpful newbie that she is, tried to clean one of em. Apparently some of the crud got moved into a bad part and fried a few circuits(they were actually black and burnt looking) so it needed to be replaced.

So I should just fling em in my dishwasher?? sounds too easy

[DukeP]

Two words of advice:

DONT try this with an original IBM keyboard. All those little springs thend to rust.

Dont disassemble the IBM keyboard, unless U are REALLY bored...
..... Spring, peeew, rattle rattle, clink, clink....

128 small springs litter the floor...




~~DukeP~~
who off course never tried this at home

[EvilDonnyboy]

I'm using an IBM keyboard off some 3 year old IBM workstation. Nice weighted base, better than my other keyboards which are all ghetto no-name crap. When I spilt liquid on it, I unpluged it and ran it under the sink until all the crap was gone. Waited about 2 days to make sure everything was dry. Good as new.

[rugger]

Warning

If you wash you keyboard, it removes all of the grease put onto key shafts to make them move smoothly. I know my old keyboard never was quite as good after I washed it the first time.

You may have to reoil them (using some sort of silicon lubricant or other thin, non oil lubricant.

[Dogbert]

Hey, I had the exact same keyboard + 1 full glass of coffee inside it.
No dishwasher so I washed it myself, dried it in the sun for 20 minutes, reassembled and it worked like new.

A few months later I had a hot chocolate incident in my car which filled my Sony car-sereo panel with lots and lot's of sticky stuff. This time it took >48 hours to dry off. The Off button didn't recover 100% but it's ok 85% of the time I use it (in the other 15% it switches from Radio to CD instead of turning off, another click and everything is fine).