Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

danielb0101 · Nov 20, 2002, 01:01 AM

First: I wasn't sure where this topic belongs, so mods, please move to the more appropriate place..

Well, it seams my graphite/silver Apple Pro Keyboard has all sorts of unsightly dust/hair/eraser crumbs/etc. underneath the plastic and above the silver.

Does anyone know which size torx 'screw'driver is needed to open up the keyboard to be cleaned out?

Any other advise when opening up the APK?

Thanks in advance.

dB

Superchicken · Nov 20, 2002, 01:40 AM

yeah apple shoulda made a way to clean these things out... I don't like to move mine cause I see how grody it is under there.

whatever7 · Nov 20, 2002, 02:27 AM

no kidding! I brought the 6-pack of these screws form hardware store. And the smallest one is still too big. Why is Apple doing this?

danielb0101 · Nov 20, 2002, 03:55 AM

Well, this is one of those things that just happen, I guess. Items do get dirty. I had to remove and clean the console of my VW Jetta by hand. The console, including the cup holders were much happier, and cleaner, after I cleaned them. I consider my VW's console and my Apple Pro keyboard of equal importance and quality, yet prone to the same problems.

Regardless, I would still like to open up my APK, just like I did to my VW Jetta's console, to clean out the junk that has accumulated in the respective places.

Cheers! and Regards!

dB

cube_450 · Nov 20, 2002, 04:20 AM

Daniel

I didn't have any inch tools here in Germany to remove the screws. So I used a tiny little 1 Millimeter (flat) screwdriver. It is a little tricky to make the screw turn and you need to press a little against the APK but it works. Just be careful not to damage the lashes at the botom side (where the space keybar is) of the APK. it is not easy to open.

Another way might be to remove the keys with a flat screwdriver pressing below the keys so that the key pops of the plastic pin where it sticks on.

You could shake the APK then to remove the dust and other stuff.

I dropped some Martini over the L K M and ; Key of the APK ant my APK is not any more usable now. I had to buy a new one fpr 75 bucks :-(

Really poor that you vant clean a APK good. I remember my IBM keyboard or my Compaq Keyboard where I could clean every single part no matter if you dropped Coke over it or not. It worked again after cleaning.

Christian

DaedalusDX · Nov 20, 2002, 05:41 AM

Originally posted by danielb0101:
First: I wasn't sure where this topic belongs, so mods, please move to the more appropriate place..

Well, it seams my graphite/silver Apple Pro Keyboard has all sorts of unsightly dust/hair/eraser crumbs/etc. underneath the plastic and above the silver.

Does anyone know which size torx 'screw'driver is needed to open up the keyboard to be cleaned out?

Any other advise when opening up the APK?

Thanks in advance.

dB

consider this a forewarning... i spilled soda in my pro keyboard a while back, and gave it to my friend because i had no use for a messed up keyboard... he took it apart all the way down, cleaned it out, and put it back together. There were more than a hundred screws in total in the pro keyboard. He enjoyed taking it apart (and now has a perfectly fine keyboard) probably because he is a EE major, but you may not feel the same way having gutted the keyboard yourself.

bil207 · 06:40 AM

You can find the info on taking apart the keyboard here.
http://216.239.35.100/search?q=cache...n&ie=UTF-8

Jansar · Nov 20, 2002, 07:09 PM

I've once taken apart my keyboard, and it was not a pretty sight at all!

If worst comes to worst, it's possible to shake the crumbs out. Bang them down to the bottom of the keyboard, then flip it face down, bang it a few times on the table to force the crumbs out.

Superchicken · Nov 21, 2002, 11:31 AM

you know... people should take photos of how grody these things get and send it to apple and ask for an easier way to clean em.

Jansar · Nov 21, 2002, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
you know... people should take photos of how grody these things get and send it to apple and ask for an easier way to clean em.

Yeah, Apple wasn't too bright behind the design of this keyboard. To put it this way, cleaning the whole thing is very, very hard.

tooki · Nov 25, 2002, 06:48 AM

Originally posted by danielb0101:
First: I wasn't sure where this topic belongs, so mods, please move to the more appropriate place..

Well, it seams my graphite/silver Apple Pro Keyboard has all sorts of unsightly dust/hair/eraser crumbs/etc. underneath the plastic and above the silver.

Does anyone know which size torx 'screw'driver is needed to open up the keyboard to be cleaned out?

Any other advise when opening up the APK?

Thanks in advance.

dB

A keyboard is a peripheral. Guess where I moved this? :-P

As for torx screwdrivers: a regular hardware store is the wrong place to look. Sears has a nice set of precision screwdrivers (item #00945736000), including all the Torx sizes you're going to encounter on Apple gear (T6-T9; there is no special metric torx -- torx is torx). The set also includes the tiny Phillips drivers you need for many PowerBook jobs. I also suggest Jensen Tools, which is a marvelous mail-order tool company that sells every specialty screwdriver you've ever seen, and then about that many again!

tooki