[zacharydz]

I accidently knocked over a glass of Coke on my apple wireless keyboard. I opened up the keyboard pretty quickly and cleaned up the mess; most of the liquid hit around the arrow keys, but the actual silicone chip part looked completely dry. After taking apart the whole keyboard and cleaning everything, it's acting pretty funky (big surprise, huh?). The weird part is, when i flip the keyboard on, the LED light goes on for about 4 seconds, then starts doing a pattern of two short blinks followed by a pause. If I turn the keyboard on and off during the bluetooth device setup, I can get to the part where I am prompted to enter the passkey.

Is this keyboard trashed? I sort of figured that it wouldn't work at all if it was damaged by liquid, so is this behavior repairable? (I would hate to dish out another $70 for a new wireless keyboard)

Thanks in advance.

[stevesnj]

How did you clean the keyboard?

[CatOne]

Originally posted by zacharydz:
I accidently knocked over a glass of Coke on my apple wireless keyboard. I opened up the keyboard pretty quickly and cleaned up the mess; most of the liquid hit around the arrow keys, but the actual silicone chip part looked completely dry. After taking apart the whole keyboard and cleaning everything, it's acting pretty funky (big surprise, huh?). The weird part is, when i flip the keyboard on, the LED light goes on for about 4 seconds, then starts doing a pattern of two short blinks followed by a pause. If I turn the keyboard on and off during the bluetooth device setup, I can get to the part where I am prompted to enter the passkey.

Is this keyboard trashed? I sort of figured that it wouldn't work at all if it was damaged by liquid, so is this behavior repairable? (I would hate to dish out another $70 for a new wireless keyboard)

Thanks in advance.

The good thing is, this is only a $70 "oops." Had it been a laptop, you would have been out a lot more

Probably easiest to just junk it and buy a new one.

[zacharydz]

I took it apart again (this time dissasembled everything) I removed those 20 or so small screws that are screwed into the metal base part. There was three plastic sheets with wires, etc in them. Turns out some of the coke seeped into that part. So I went out and bought some 90% isopropyl alcohol and thoroughly drenched everything with it. Since it was such high proof alcohol, it evaporated quickly and I then used canned air to make sure everything was dry. Reassembled everything, and it works! A bit of a pain, but worth the $70 that I 'saved'.

[Kenneth]

I had a similar case, but it was the original Apple USB keyboard and coffee. It died on me and I had to get the McAlly iKey rather than shelled out $99 bucks and wait-time to get the same kayboard from Apple.

[nJm]

A friend once spilt a glass of Jack Danials + Coke on my USB keyboard (one of the current ones). We decided it was dead, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun and soaked it in a bath for an hour. I then left it out to dry for a week. Once I was sure it was dry I plugged it back in. It worked! In fact, it was just as it used to be so I'm still using it. Seems flawless to me. Now, I don't know how well a wireless keyboard would react to being submerged, but you can do it with the USB model

[tonton]

Alcohol is a solvent. It can easily react with the plastics, metals and coatings of the keyboard.

Next time use distilled water, which will leave no residue. You can heat it up first in a ceramic cup in the microwave to make it evaporate faster. Better to do it on a dry day as well.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by nJm:
A friend once spilt a glass of Jack Danials + Coke on my USB keyboard (one of the current ones). We decided it was dead, so I thought I'd have a bit of fun and soaked it in a bath for an hour. I then left it out to dry for a week. Once I was sure it was dry I plugged it back in. It worked! In fact, it was just as it used to be so I'm still using it. Seems flawless to me. Now, I don't know how well a wireless keyboard would react to being submerged, but you can do it with the USB model

I'd heard that some of the computer techs in my high school would use the dishwashers in the Home Ec room to clean the computer lab keyboards (the old solid as a tank Apple Extended Keyboard). Never saw it done, but our labs did have the cleanest public-use keyboards I'd ever seen.

[sith33]

As long as the device isn't powered when submerged, water shouldn't really hurt it. You just need to also get it try to avoid corrosion. I spilled a glass of orange juice in my last apple USB keyboard, but applecare replaced it

[stevesnj]

Why not use electronic cleaner spray?

[PurpleGiant]

Originally posted by stevesnj:
Why not use electronic cleaner spray?

Pffft. Logic.