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Michele at Coudal Partners kept hearing about people cleaning their computer keyboards in dishwashers, so she decided to try an experiment — she popped the keys off her Apple keyboard and washed it. Documenting the experience in a short film called Shift Option Rinse, Michele found that it worked! Except somehow the F10 and F11 keys disappeared…oh well.
Computer keyboard manufacturers don’t recommend the dishwasher treatment, though in my one attempt (an Apple Extended Keyboard II), it worked like a charm. I’ve even seen motherboards and other computer components go through the dishwasher, though that was a decade ago — perhaps things were simpler then. Anyway, my personal tips: use the lightest cycle your dishwasher has, don’t use soap, and do let the keyboard dry out for a long time (say, up to a week) before using it again. Also, popping the keys off is optional.
Learn more via this NPR story, a detailed Boing Boing post, and of course Michele’s Shift Option Rinse (featuring the CP RinseCam 9000™).
So have any of you tried the dishwasher treatment?
Ours is not to wonder why rather to marvel at the ingenuity.
posted by Going Like Sixty on 9-18-2007 at 10:43 am
I have two Apple keyboards that never worked again after just having water spilled on them. I’m afraid to try this with the one left working.
posted by Miss Cellania on 9-18-2007 at 12:48 pm
I work in the electronics industry. Now they’re not allowed to use tanks of boiling 1-1-1 Trichloroethane to clean dried rosin-flux from circuit boards, a lot of big companies have taken to using what amounts to an industrial dishwasher for the task.
The only downside? I once put a stack of boards in on a Friday afternoon and completely forgot about them. When I got to work on Monday morning, my boss pointed out that an entire batch of circuit boards had gone rusty.
I was surprised to learn how many electronic components can rust!
Oh, and Miss C - the reason your keyboards stopped working when they got water spilled on them was probably because they were powered at the time.
To be honest though, I wouldn’t recommend this technique for your keyboard either - water can get into the strangest places in a pre-assembled product, where it will sit until conditions are just right for it to cause a short.
To be totally safe, you need to strip the keyboard down to its component parts, and if you’re gonna go to that effort, you might as well clean it all by hand, using soap and water on the plastics and alcohol on the electronic components.
posted by Slippy Lane on 9-18-2007 at 1:14 pm
my daughter once spilled a coke into the cooling vents on a television which was off when it happened. i took the case off and hosed it down on the patio and left it to dry for 3 or 4 days. no harm done. i have also run many small appliances such as toasters and cooling fans through the dishwasher. the key is to make sure they are thoroughly dry before plugging back in.
posted by thomas on 9-18-2007 at 3:10 pm
I use the Virtually Indestructible Keyboard from GrandTec. Wash it any way you like, it’’s waterproof.
posted by dale on 9-18-2007 at 3:50 pm
I had a pint of red paint dumped on a keyboard and I washed the keyboard in alcohol. It dries out very quickly and does not damage the electronic components at all. Less risky [although not nearly as sensational] than the dishwasher for sure.
posted by TechTeach on 9-18-2007 at 7:05 pm
I did this often back in the days of the Apple ADB keyboards, but haven’t tried it on the USB variety. I’ve got a couple of dead ones at work… Guess it couldn’t hurt to try it on them.
posted by Dave on 9-18-2007 at 9:37 pm
I would think that the only problem you might potentially have with hosing down dirty circuit boards and the like might be with paper capacitors - most everything else is pretty well waterproof. I suppose you might get some water trapped inside inductors, but that’ll dry eventually.
And, as Thomas says, I know a TV repairman who would keep his eyes open for old, broken, grungy TVs that folks were willing to simply give away. He, too, just opened them up and hosed ‘em down on the back patio, let ‘em dry for a week, and diagnosed and fixed them.
posted by Terry on 9-18-2007 at 9:57 pm
I dribbled a little bit of coffee on my keyboard. The keys acted goofy so I tried to rinse the coffee out under the faucet. I let it dry for a while but it was still wet inside and acting goofy. I took it apart and vacuumed around the components with a shop vac. The keyboard worked better than it did before the spill, so I guess it was already due for a cleaning.
Years ago, a Popular Mechanics story reported that NASA used a household dishwasher to clean circuit boards. A picture showed a technician posing with a Kitchenaid, among the scientific equipment.
posted by Tdave on 9-19-2007 at 1:03 am
BTW, What I meant by “goofy” is that I would hit a key for one thing and something else would happen.
posted by Tdave on 9-19-2007 at 2:56 am
My old TV used to do that “goofy” thing. You had to push volume up to turn it on.
I once spilled a liter of water on my keyboard and all I did was dump it out and kept typing. That was almost 2 years ago and it is still going. It is probably due for a clean, though.
posted by kate on 9-19-2007 at 1:19 pm