Anyone have any tips for cleaning/fixing a Mechanical Keyboard?

Associate
Joined
27 Jan 2009
Posts
1,307
Location
United Kingdom
As the title says.

Managed to gracefully pour a glass of Coca Cola over my keyboard, now the keys are sticky as hell.

I've tried the cotton bud method with getting water into the keys and they work perfectly until it then drys and goes back to be sticky. Every key works perfectly fine, just the stickyness which is what i'm trying to clean up.

Anyone have any tips on how to fix this if it's happened to you? If not i'm just gonna shove it in the dishwasher even if the keys work perfectly fine i consider it broke in it's current state.
 
Take photo of keyboard.
Pop all the keys off.
Stick them in a bowl of warm water with fairy liquid.
Scrub them with toothbrush.
Leave them to dry.
Clean the main body of the keyboard best u can.
Make sure it's all dry.
Pop it back together.
Test it.
Report back.
 
Dishwasher is NOT a good idea. Warm soapy water is a good idea, but after a water rinse you need to rinse again with 98%+ isopropyl alcohol as this will displace the water and prevent residue. Then leave in a warm well-aired place to dry. You may need to rinse with alcohol twice. You'll need to wear gloves to prevent IPA burns.
 
I hope it's diet, because sugar will corrode the PCB - disassemble & use IPA with q-tips.

Anything else is just waiting for it to fail - it's a matter of when not if.
 
Back
Top Bottom