Woman cleans keyboard... in dishwasher
Keyboard survives to type the tale
You've got a desktop keyboard. And it's stained, grimy and filled with crumbs - not to mention the odd short, curly hair that really can't have got there through natural means. What do you do? You put it in the Whirlpool, that's what.
At least, that's what Michele - the US' answer to our very own Hardware Widow by the sounds of it - from Chicago-based consultancy Coudal Partners did. You can see the results on the company's website here, but here are some tasters from the movie she made:
Step 1. Remove the keys
Step 2. Securely bag up the USB connector
Step 3. In it goes...
Step 4. Apres la deluge
Step 5. Recover the keys
Step 6. Refit the keys after thoroughly drying them
Step 7. Type away!
Says Michele: "Just like with socks in the laundry, somehow a couple of our matching keys disappeared in the process. Luckily they were F10 and F11. We never use those anyhow."
Want to try this yourself? Proceed at your own risk - don't blame us if it totals your keyboard and/or dishwasher/washing machine...
COMMENTS
AT keyboard
even works on AT keyboard that is 8 years old now ;-)
still working.... bugger that makes me sound old
Old News
I've never used a dishwasher, but the large Belfast sink in our old film processing lab could take entire Wyse 85 terminal - it needed to when someone had dropped a container of sweet'n'sour chicken (hong-kong style) over it and it's keyboard.
BTW some flavours of sweet'n'sour are worse than Coke for wrecking electronic kit!
Toaster
I have been using the same key board for the past 7 years, it's been through loads of coffee, tea, coke and anything else you can think off. it also has more crumbs than my toaster and i havent cleaned it once.
still works fine, washing it is a far way off.
get a life.
Dishwasherless
What do you do if you don't have a lar-de-dah fancy pants dish washer? I had to take off every key from my old 8088 IBM and wash it.
By the way the Enter key being on two lines is a feature of all UK keyboards. I can't stand those unfamiliar us keyboards with the / is the wrong place.
For safer cleaning....
Keyboards like other electronics taken for a dunking will work perfectly well if dried out without any power running through them. You'll increase your success rate if you give a final rinse in distilled water, or even better alcohol.
