Advice Please - Keyboard Coked-up!

Justcoll

On Friday, I managed to spill a glass of coca-cola all over my lovely silver keyboard.:eek: :mad: I dried it out but certain keys were affected and pressing them resulted in multiple letters.

I've bought a £10 Logitech Ultra-Flat which is pretty good considering the price but I'd really like to get my Advent working again.

Is there anything I can do?

TIA

Sput2001

Mehh... it's probably goosed. You could try prising the keys off and giving it another really good clean, and then let it really dry out, but with sugary gloop like coke it's a pretty long shot.

-TangleFoot-

You could try putting it in the dishwasher...

DatabaseError

with tanglefoot here, just get it washed, if not in the dishwasher then take it into the shower.
Be sure to give it plenty of time to dry before plugging back in though!!

Justcoll

DatabaseError wrote: »

with tanglefoot here, just get it washed, if not in the dishwasher then take it into the shower.
Be sure to give it plenty of time to dry before plugging back in though!!

I did consider this but hesitated because it wasn't that the keys were stuck - they were muddled - so I thought the damage might be permanent. I have to admit I haven't a clue how they work. I just know that they're very different from a mechanical typewriter! It's odd to press a key and produce five characters. Even the space bar was affected.

Justcoll

DatabaseError wrote: »

with tanglefoot here, just get it washed, if not in the dishwasher then take it into the shower.
Be sure to give it plenty of time to dry before plugging back in though!!

I nearly broke the monitor too trying to squash your virtual creepy crawly.:rotfl:

davb

Justcoll wrote: »

I haven't a clue how they work

The keys you see are just caps, which click onto a base. This in turn contacts onto a circuit board along with all the other keys.
If you have spilt Coke, as well as sticking the keys, it will be conductive, and will short out the different parts of the board - so anything could happen when you press a key.:D

Justcoll

davb wrote: »

The keys you see are just caps, which click onto a base. This in turn contacts onto a circuit board along with all the other keys.
If you have spilt Coke, as well as sticking the keys, it will be conductive, and will short out the different parts of the board - so anything could happen when you press a key.:D

Thanks. I knew it had to be something like that - but could washing and decoking the keyboard undo the damage - if something has been shorted out, doesn't it stay that way?

macman

Not if you remove the cause of the short-the coke. But the risk is that water submersion will cause later corrosion if you don't allow it to dry out very thoroughly (try 5 days in a warm airing cupboard).
You might as well try, because otherwise your keyboard is finished.

davb

The circuit board will look something like this
It's not carrying a high voltage, so the shorting out is really like pressing a key (or number of keys together). If the Coke is washed off and thoroughly dried, there is a chance it could still work. Either way if you don't clean it, it's most likely in the bin, so it may be worth a shot.

Justcoll

Many thanks to all of you who replied. This must be one of the friendliest and most helpful forums on MSE!

Davb, the picture was much appreciated. Macman, thanks for the explanation. I love PCs but struggle with the more "under-the-bonnet" type stuff. Perhaps (dare I say it?) guys find that bit easier to understand. However I *want* to understand so that I can learn to sort stuff myself.

I started out (years ago) with an Atari ST and had to learn and do things the hard way, but with PCs everything seems more hidden and locked away, almost. Do you all agree?