Cleaning keyboards (was: GNO tar working under another shell?)

[andrep@balboa.eng.uci.edu (Andre Prellwitz)]

In article <20214@mindlink.bc.ca> Clayten_Hamacher@mindlink.bc.ca 
(Clayten Hamacher) writes:

[stuff nuked]

>Also, someone mentioned something about taking keycaps off and cleaning
>underneath, how do they come off, I tried pulling up and they would come (I
>stopped when I though they were about to break).

Don't stop.  Use a knife and pry those suckers right off.  Note: it is better
(safer) to pry them off from the top or bottom, not the sides, except for the
long horizontal keys (tab, ctl, shift, space, etc--do these from the side).

>On the same topic, Some of my keys have broken off (when I moved the box got
>dropped), the grey plastic inside the orange plastic is broken, is it
>possible to remove that peice of grey plastic or is it attached to the
>mechanism, and if it is removable, can I buy a replacement.. If I can't do it
>that way, can I buy an entire new key and the mechanism? (ie, what's the
>smallest unit I can replace, I don't want to get a new keyboard just to have
>a keycap on my ctrl key (the key still works)).
>
>Clayten_Hamacher@Mindlink.bc.ca                 Land of the rising snow.

Yank the grey piece out.  It is part of the key.  Then, use contact cement,
model cement, or Krazy Glue (tm) and glue the gray part back onto the cap (I
hope you still have it!!)
In the past, when I have cleaned my keys, I have noticed that most are unique.
That is, you won't be able to put the 't' key where the 'n' key is, and so on,
because each key is angled differently and has a slightly different shape.  I
guess that's part of the reason why keyboards are so damn expensive!

email at: andrep@balboa.eng.uci.edu

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