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?
Comments (19)
Comment
- subscribe /
- give a gift /
- terms of service /
- about /
- contact us /
- write for us /
- ad info /
- subscriber services /
- press /
- privacy policy /
- rss /
© 2012 Mental Floss Inc. All Rights Reserved. Mental Floss is a registered trademark owned by Felix Dennis. mentalfloss.com is a trademark owned by Felix Dennis.
Disclaimer: All submissions made to mental_floss become the property of Mental Floss Inc and may be used without further permission by the submitter and without compensation to the submitter. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not submit anything to mental_floss.
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
I know this will sound crazy, but I know it works so I’m posting this. 18 yrs. ago my 5 yr. old was home sick and I was at the computer typing away. He threw a nerf ball and knocked over my cup of coffee which was loaded with light cream and sugar. The coffee landed all over my keyboard, and I mean all over. My husband’s friend who was an engineer at General Electric told him that this happens all the time at the G.E. (the coffee spilling, not the nerf ball) and told us how to solve the problem. We disconnected the keyboard, wound up the cord and put it in a plastic bag & secured it shut. We then put in on the top rack of the dishwasher with the keys facing down. We ran the shortest cycle WITHOUT any detergent, water only. DO NOT RUN THE HEAT DRYING OPTION. After the cycle was over, we removed the keyboard and with the keyboard facing down again, gently shook it until all the water was shaken out. You can take the cord out of the plastic bag at this time too. We then put it on a fluffy towl for a while face down, shaking it gently from time to time to remove any water that may linger. After that we put it on an elevated metal rack, the kind you’d put freshly baked cookies on to cool, and let it sit in a warm place for a couple of days. When dried, we plugged it back in and lo & behold, it worked perfectly and we never had one problem with it. The engineer told us that keyboards are for the most part, sealed pretty well. We had nothing to lose really but a keyboard full of very sticky coffee with light cream!! Once again, it sounds crazy, but it absolutely worked!
posted by Cathie on 2-17-2010 at 4:56 pm
I wrote up this tip when I was writing Mary ELlen’s Helpful Hints books and columns in Womans Day and Star 20 years ago (it was sent it by a computer repairman’s wife) and when I worked with Robert Stevens –the Geek Squad founder — on his book, The Geek Squad Guide Guide to Solving Any Computer Glitch in 1999–passed it on to him, he tried it, and we put it in his book. It STILL works. I like the techniques people have developed.
posted by daleburg on 3-1-2010 at 5:55 pm
I’ve meaning to look this up, but hadn’t. I have at least two keyboards that were headed for recycling. The one I’m typing on now could use a good scrubbing as well. I’m a little confused, however. Do you have to pop the keys off or not? Thanks for the tip! I’ll give it a try…one keyboard at a time!
posted by Dale on 3-1-2010 at 7:32 pm
Done it, WORKS! Learned this trick in the the mid-90s while working as a Sys Admin at the university. Was the admin for the engineering college computer labs with over 200 Sun workstations. Naturally things got spilled in the keyboards despite the food/drink prohibition.
Five screws to split the keyboard in half. Put each half in the dishwasher, no soap, no heat drying. Afer washing let them sit out a couple days, then reassemble. Plug them in and use them. All of them I did survived. Having a brain-fart about the cable; cannot remember if it got disconnected or washed.
Awesome engineering. I believe that Sun meant for them to be serviced. I recall these keyboards were expensive, approx $100.
Not sure about todays $25-$50 keyboards. Wonder what is inside. Bet it will not survive dishwashing. This one has 16 screws in it. At least it is not a snap together. That is a project for when I have nothing else to do.
Remember, if you spilled something nasty on it, what have you got to lose?
posted by Richard on 3-1-2010 at 9:34 pm
Regarding Cathie’s comment about washing keyboards in the dishwasher, she said put the keyboard and cord in a plastic bag and secure it shut. How could it get washed that way? This is the quote from her post:
We disconnected the keyboard, wound up the cord and put it in a plastic bag & secured it shut. We then put in on the top rack of the dishwasher with the keys facing down. We ran the shortest cycle WITHOUT any detergent, water only. DO NOT RUN THE HEAT DRYING OPTION. After the cycle was over, we removed the keyboard and with the keyboard facing down again, gently shook it until all the water was shaken out. You can take the cord out of the plastic bag at this time too.
posted by Sandy on 3-2-2010 at 12:17 am
I’m curious how folks are finding this post now and commenting on it. Was it linked somewhere big?
posted by Chris Higgins on 3-2-2010 at 6:23 pm
I got here from
http://www.diylife.com/2010/02/11/the-daily-fix-clean-up-a-keyboard-spill
posted by Laura on 6-12-2010 at 8:05 am
This was linked on the welcome screen on AOL on 6/12/2010.
posted by Connie on 6-12-2010 at 9:33 am