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How would one safley clean a keyboard?


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Over the years my keyboard has built up a lot of crud on it and between the keys. Can someone suggest a safe manner of scrubbing it out without wrecking it. It still works fine it's just unsightly. Much appreciated.

 

 

The Rabbit

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A screwdriver

A picture of your keyboard from topdown for reference

various bowl or other holding vessels, including one with water to wash the keys

I think cotton buds will help a lot to clean the larger plastic pieces.

 

I usually unscrew everything and place the electronic layer and wiring somewhere safe and isolated, then just wash or wipe the rest, and leave everything to dry up.

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Blow it out with compressed air. (a compressor at about 45PSI is FAR superior to the funky little cans of 'air') Spray it with some variety of cleaner. (409, or something similar) Scrub it with a medium hard scrub brush, both lengthwise, and widthwise. Wipe it down with a towel. Spray it down with air again, to get the last little bits, and dry it out. Looks like a new keyboard when you are done.

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Unscrew everything that unscrews. Take it apart. Assuming it's a cheap membrane - hopefully with a solid rubber pad, not a tiny dome per key - remove the membranes and the board, clean them separately. You should be left with a few hard plastic parts that hold 99% of the dirt.

 

Don't bother removing the keycaps. Just open warm/hot water under as high pressure as you can get and wash it from both sides, the keycaps will pop out to let water in. If called for, add a bit of dish detergent, wait a while, use more water and a hard plastic brush. Remove some keycaps if there's something large stuck under them.

 

Let dry for half a day on radiator or a day without once done.

Leave compressed air for cleaning PCBs and mechanical keyboards. Water+surfactants are far superior for membrane ones.

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One other note about compressed air, always use canned air or another source of dehumidified air. As far as electronics go, blasting it with air from a regular compressor is like spraying it with a garden hose. Or it least it can be, depending on your local humidity conditions. Edited by TheMastersSon
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