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Later Apple USB keyboards and dishwashers.

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roberttx

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I've just bought a load of later Apple USB keyboards - M2542, A1058, etc. Some of them are very grubby, so I was thinking about the dishwasher trick.

I know that the Gold standard is disassembly and Isopropyl, but I have around a hundred or more, so that could get prohibitively time consuming.

Has anybody tried running one of these through a dishwasher?
 
roberttx said:
I've just bought a load of later Apple USB keyboards - M2542, A1058, etc. Some of them are very grubby, so I was thinking about the dishwasher trick.

I know that the Gold standard is disassembly and Isopropyl, but I have around a hundred or more, so that could get prohibitively time consuming.

Has anybody tried running one of these through a dishwasher?
Click to expand...

They were crap when they were new. Whatever you do to them can't make them any worse
 
My general rule of thumb is to never under any circumstances run a keyboard through a dishwasher. Ever. It might take longer but completely stripping the keyboard down and cleaning the parts individually is far better and poses less of a risk damaging the keyboard itself.
 
I clean keyboards by pulling the keycaps off and disassembling the case. I put the keycaps in a mesh bag (with a closure) and place them and the keyboard case top in the dishwasher.
 
I would not put it in the dishwasher assembled too many places for water and soap to pool up and dry out to form crap that could make them not work
 
Thanks for the replies, chaps. I have a shed load of them, so doing things properly is time prohibitive.

SWMBO is going to be away with work, this week, so I think I might give Chris' suggestion a try, while her back is turned...
 
roberttx said:
Thanks for the replies, chaps. I have a shed load of them, so doing things properly is time prohibitive.

SWMBO is going to be away with work, this week, so I think I might give Chris' suggestion a try, while her back is turned...
Click to expand...

Now I have to say the dishwasher idea is not 100% but if your set
on it most Dishwashers have a compartment for final rinse I would
add alcohol to it just so you have some kind of agent to help with
evaporation..

Best method is taking it apart because I think you will find some
corrosion after a month of sitting..
 
I'm not yet decided on how, precisely, I'll do the test article. I think, though, that if I were doing them in bulk I'd blow them out with air from my compressor then dip them in a 91% Isopropyl bath to help shift any lingering traces.

Maybe set them in the cab of my truck on a hot day after that, to speed evaporation. We're still getting above 100F on a regular basis down here.
 
most Dishwashers have a compartment for final rinse I would
add alcohol to it just so you have some kind of agent to help with
evaporation..
Click to expand...
What?
The dilution of rubbing alcohol to water would still be something like 8:1 on the rinse. There's absolutely no point to something like that
 
The aluminum keyboards are pretty terrible. The membrane will dissolve in any sort of liquid. Not kidding. Any moisture on those things and you start getting random keys not working.
 
I pulled a filthy aluminum Apple USB keyboard out of the trash, washed it with soap and water in the sink, gave it enough time to dry, and now it works fine and looks almost like new. I did not submerge it in water, but ran the tap over it to rinse it.
 
Well, today we revisited the keyboards - just the A1048s for starters.

Turns out we have 43 good ones, 6 duds and 6 more duds that I pillaged for keycaps to complete some of the 43.

I figure there's nothing to lose with the duds, so I'll put a few in the dishwasher and see what happens.
 
Update: It turns out that you can fit four A1048s in the top tray of our dishwasher.

I ran them on regular, no extra hot, no heated drying, with no dishwasher detergent. They came out clean and completely waterlogged. I shook out as much water as I could and they're sitting upside down on a towel to dry.

I shouldn't think I'll be plugging them in any time soon, but it will be interesting to see whether they work when I do.

As for the others, I guess I need to weigh one, look at box sizes and figure out what shipping is looking like costing. It might make more sense to sell them in lots of five, rather than individually.
 
In our operation, anything that looks like it would benefit from a good washing goes through the dishwasher within these parameters;

1 tsp (15ml) of dishwashing detergent in both the primary and secondary dispensers.

Logic boards and anything else that will fit set normally in the slots of the racks.

Keyboards keys down on top of the rack slots

No rinse agent

No heat dry cycle.

After that they are racked and rotated every 15 minutes (component side down first) and then rotated every 4 hours for 12 hours.

About 30% of the keyboards require disassembly and having the matrix cleaned with Windex. Survival rate, roughly 97%.

It works for us and we even process PSU this way.
 
Several years ago, I accidentally spilled cola into an A1048. I quickly unplugged it, ran it under the tap of our kitchen sink, and let it drain out. After several days of drying, I plugged it in to try it out, but it didn't seem to work at all. Several days (weeks?) later, I decided to try it again for the heck of it, and it worked! However, I did notice that the computer refused to go into sleep mode with it connected, so there's probably still something not quite right with it...
-Adam
 
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