Cleaning Keyboards?

[JankenTheGreat]

I guess this could have gone into off-topic, but here it is anyway...

 

 

While I as at a friends house, my baby brother discovered my Atari 800XL......

 

This means NOT GOOD! DALTON + ATARI 800XL = NOT GOOD!

He spilled milk in the keyboard, now its all sticky and won't work. Can I clean it just, any way?

 

 

I know it was my brother, but it really makes me look like a slob.

[A2600]

I head once that these could be dish washed!! just given the fact of a 2-3 day drying period!!!

 

Im not so sure but I heard it form a guy he said it in his site and he did it with his 65XE!!

 

So you could try!!

 

also get a sponge with some soap and rub the keyboard down!

[Gunstar]

your going to have to open up the computer and remove the keyboard, then, you'll have to take out all the screws on the back of it to access the inside, the keys will come off easy in this state too, they should pop off. then, either use something like windex or rubbing alcohol and some paper towels to carefully clean it all up, then re-assemble it all. lots of small pieces though, so have a bowl or something ready to store them in, and you may want to make sure you remember where everything goes, by sketching or writing it down, or something (I'm assuming you've never done anything like this before-disassembling a keyboard). It sould work fine after that.

[JankenTheGreat]

your going to have to open up the computer and remove the keyboard, then, you'll have to take out all the screws on the back of it to access the inside, the keys will come off easy in this state too, they should pop off. then, either use something like windex or rubbing alcohol and some paper towels to carefully clean it all up, then re-assemble it all. lots of small pieces though, so have a bowl or something ready to store them in, and you may want to make sure you remember where everything goes, by sketching or writing it down, or something (I'm assuming you've never done anything like this before-disassembling a keyboard). It sould work fine after that.

 

I doubt my 800XL would work after me doing that.

[Nukey Shay]

You can always just lift off all of the keys (the space bar is a bit tricky though). Use a butter knife to gently pry up a key. Once they are all off, you can just dump them in a bowl of soapy water, and wipe down the inside of the keyboard itself. Then you just snap them all back down. Works OK on my Atari800...dunno if the XL/XE keyboards differ too much to do this.

[Gunstar]

You can always just lift off all of the keys (the space bar is a bit tricky though).  Use a butter knife to gently pry up a key.  Once they are all off, you can just dump them in a bowl of soapy water, and wipe down the inside of the keyboard itself.  Then you just snap them all back down.  Works OK on my Atari800...dunno if the XL/XE keyboards differ too much to do this.

 

that will work as long as none of the milk go down INSIDE the key shafts AND onto the membrane underneath...otherwise, he'll have to go the whole 9 yards!

[Nukey Shay]

How are the keyboards designed on the XL's? The top area of mine is completely sealed (besides the raised holes for the keys...which are covered by the keycaps). No chance of any fluids getting in there, it would run off onto the motherboard underneath (which could be wiped down with alcohol).

[sashswash]

I recently took apart my 800xl's keyboard to clean it. It was really easy. It consists of the keys with a bunch of little springs inside them (be careful not to lose these), and the membrane with the contacts. They keys snap right off, and back on for easy cleaning. The whole job took probably about an hour and a half.