Advice Please - Keyboard Coked-up!

DatabaseError

Justcoll wrote: »

.... This must be one of the friendliest and most helpful forums on MSE! .

Yeah...start a thread on the relative merits of windows vs OSx and see how friendly it becomes :mad:

Nilrem

One tip with regards to cleaning the keyboard, I personally find Iso-propyl alcohol is about the best thing to clean them with (put some on kitchen roll/cotton buds and rub).
It moves the sticky stuff, and any of the fluid left will evaporate very quickly afterwards.
I've used it a few times on my dad's keyboard and nostromo gaming pad after he's spilled coffee/tea on them, and multiple times on various remotes due to tea/coffee/fizzy drinks

The faster you can clean the keyboard the less chance there is of lasting damage (the coke is quite corrosive).

I tend to keep a can of the iso-propyle in the garage these days for cleaning PC gear, and remote controls etc because it's effective and leaves zero residue (it's also handy for cleaning my airbrush)

Justcoll

macman wrote: »

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.

Is there any reason not to use a hair-dryer?

PROLIANT

An old trick I picked up as an Electronics Technician was to use white spirit to clean water/fluid damaged electronics equipment, you can submerse the subject in the chemical and clean it, take it out and use a heat gun at arms length or a hair dryer on low heat to finish the job.

Used this method several times on mobile phones, radio equipment all with great success. Just be careful if the subject has a conformal coating on the PCB when using any form of chemical as it may cause a reaction.