Cleaning Your Keyboard Part 1 of 2

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Cleaning Keyboards
Part 1 of 2

     Keyboards are abused peripherals. We spill sodas and coffee on them. Our food crumbs hide in them. Our cats lay on them. Smokers accidentally flip ashes on them. I’ve even heard of one person who “accidentally” blew out a large candle near hers and covered the keys in hot wax.

     To keep your keyboard clean, try to set ashtrays and drinks away from the keyboard. Sometimes this isn’t possible. So you can also buy a keyboard cover for around $20 (which is about the cost of a new standard keyboard).

     Before you go out and buy a new keyboard, the “innards” of one can usually be cleaned. You’d be amazed at how much better the keys respond after a thorough cleaning.

     First, let’s talk about the basics of what makes a keyboard work and what it contains.

      The visible part of a keyboard consists of 101, 104 or more keys or keypads. Some of these keys, such as the spacebar, have springs attached underneath them. When you press down on one of the keys, you are actually pressing down on small “rubber plunger domes” under the keypads. These rubber domes are attached (glued) to a clear plastic circuit board. Some keyboards have what is called a membrane. A membrane is actually a one-piece rubber pad with extruding domes. When you read about a “quiet” keyboard, they usually have membranes.

     The clear plastic circuit board, called the key matrix, lays on the bottom half of the keyboard case. The wire coming out of your keyboard attaches to the clear plastic circuit board and then to your CPU.

     This circuit board is called the key matrix because it is a grid of rows and columns of wires. Each key acts like a switch. When you press a key, the dome, in turn, completes a circuit. The computer then identifies the correct keystroke.

     Now that you know the basics of how your keyboard works, let’s clean all of the gunk out of it!

    There are three ways to clean your keyboard. The first is with a can of compressed air, the second is a very radical way that I haven’t tried, and the third method is thorough (which is the method that I use).

     If you have a keyboard “cover” you can simply remove the cover and clean it. But this isn’t nearly as fun.
     The standard cleaning method used on a keyboard is a can of compressed air. I find that this just redistributes a lot of the debris in the keyboard, makes a mess, and can actually make keys stick.

    If you’d like to try this method, turn your system totally off. Unplug the keyboard and take it outside. Using the can of compressed air, blow between the keys. A lot of dust and debris will be blown out this way.

     One of my professors swore by the dishwasher method to clean keyboards. I haven’t tried this, as I don’t have a keyboard that I’m willing to experiment with. Three things bother me about this method. One, I don’t want cat hair in my dishwasher. The second is that water gets awfully hot in a dishwasher. The third thing that bothers me is what happens if I forget to turn the “heat dry” off? I will have a melted keyboard in my dishwasher.

     For those of you who want to try to clean a keyboard in the dishwasher, make sure you put the keyboard on the top rack with it upside down (keys facing down). Do not use heat to dry. Turn the “heat dry” feature off. It will take a few days for the keyboard to thoroughly dry out, so you will be without your computer until is dry. Dry it by placing it upside down on a towel.

    Do not put a laptop in the dishwasher. People have actually done this!

   I have a friend who took his keyboard to the carwash. I really don’t advise doing this. It took it forever to dry out and never was quite the same.
    Next week I will tell you in detail how to thoroughly clean out your keyboard. All in one article.   Stay tuned!

UPDATE! I tried cleaning a "cordless" keyboard this way. Oops! LOL My $100 mistake is a warning NOT to use water on a cordless keyboard. It has a circuit board inside that doesn't like water!