Re: GS keyboard cleaning?

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Mdwright (mdwright@aol.com) wrote:
: I picked up a yard sale GS, seems to work ok, except keyboard is
: very erratic (slapping it helps a little), mouse doesn't work at all. I'm
: guessing 
: a bad solder connection on the keyboard circuit board. Any suggestions or 
: gotchas I should know about before taking the keyboard apart?

: mike

Getting the keyboard apart...and back together...is fairly devoid of
'gotchas'.  I'm guessing you probably want to clean the keys...someone
here on c.s.a2 has in the past posted a "recipe" for a strong solvent that
apparently works well on keys.  I have not tried it; I just remove the
keycaps and use a glass jar full of hot, soapy water.

But you are having *functional* problems...

The first place I would look is at the connections on the ADB connectors
at either end of the keyboard.  Plugging and unplugging on that
wave-soldered connector, not otherwise mechanically attached to the
keyboard case, eventually causes failure of the solder joint.  Carefully
re-melt the solder pads under the cord sockets, and you might solve your
problem.

Question:  Does the problem go away when you plug your computer into the
keyboard's other port?  That absolutely implicates the connector.

Otherwise, the GS keyboard has discrete keyswitches; if you have
intermittent problems with a particular key, then you probably have a bad
keyswitch.  Sorry, I don't know of a good source.

For reference, I have had a connector problem with my GS keyboard, and I
have had a lot of keys fail on my Mom's ][e...but so far none of the keys
on my GS has failed.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
-- 
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