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Quote:

Originally Posted by red-beard (Post 4527729)

We had a manager whose keyboard was disgusting. I've seen smokers who had disgusting keyboards, but this one was covered in "mung".

I felt really bad for the coop that inherited that keyboard. I helped him remove the keys, soak and clean them.

To me, it would have been worth it to spend the $20 and buy a new one.

A colleague of mine puts it in the dishwasher and let it dry for a month. On the meanwhile he uses another one that he cycles.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffgrant (Post 4527766)

To me, it would have been worth it to spend the $20 and buy a new one.

Hell, I can get a Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard for $20. If you want one of the plain jane keyboards, those can be had for $5.

My current keyboard is programmable and was almost $300. I think I'll pass.

http://www.ergoware.com/blog/wp-cont...o-keyboard.jpg

http://www.ergocanada.com/products/k...ll_696x390.jpg

I worked in a circuit board assy shop for a period of time. Once boards had components assembled and then wave soldered, they went into a industrial dish washer with dish soap and that jet dry stuff...... they came out clean as a whistle once they dried thoroughly.

In my boat yard wrenchng days every so often a customer's depth finder would go kaput due to the intense salt air. VHF's only wore out due to old age. He'd pay for a new finder and I'd take away the junk. I'd open them up and take them apart as much as possible and either wash the boards with tap water and soap or the dish washer and let them air dry for a week or so. I had around a 75% success rate.

A distilled water rinse should leave things sterile, in theory at least. It's used extensively in the circuit board manufacturing process.

My Neice dumped a whole glass of chocolate milk on her Mother's two week old laptop. Killed it dead. I figured what the hell, and tore it down as far as I could, and removed the hard drive, dvd drive, and case. Rinsed everything else out in the tub, dried it out with the air compressor, put it back together. It booted the first time.

To this day I'm still her hero.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyl (Post 4527143)

My theory about all things electronic is that if (1) no voltage is applied while wet, (2) allowed to thoroughly dry, and (3) no crappy cardboard internals like some 80's era cheap clock radio, they can usually survive getting wet.

I've had a laptop submerged in muddy water, pulled the battery, removed all the ports and screw-on panels, water poured out, set it under a fan for 48 hours and good as new.

Have saved a couple of cellphones the same way. Although, putting my Blackberry in the oven on "warm" turned out to be a bad idea.

A friend's $900 Sony DSLR was soaked in water and completely dead, she was distraught, I told her "don't worry", removed lens, battery, memory card, dried it out for 24 hours, and also no problem.

Those were all accidental soakings, I finally did it intentionally. The two keyboards for the iMac were unspeakably filthy (kids and their dirty fingers) with sticking keys. One is rather hard to replace here in US, is a French AZERTY keyboard, and anyway a new Apple keyboard is more than $20. So I unplugged, submerged in a sinkful of warm soapy water, scrubbed clean with a kitchen brush, then dried them out for 48 hours. Work like a charm.

Anyone else clean their electronics in the bathtub?

Yep, i've had really good luck with letting stuff dry out too.