Cleaning dust under keys/contacts on your keyboard

[ChrisH]

Hi Guys

What does everyone use to get rid of dust/lint that causes keys to become intermittent  (apart from covering the keyboard in the first place) I bought a used keyboard and one key is a little intermittent (the previous owner swore blind she always kept the keys covered) I suspect it could have dust in it so do you turn the board upside down and either vacuum or use a "clean air" compressed air blaster to get rid on muck inside?  or is it better to open it up ?

Thanks for any hints and tips

Chris

[andyg]

Open up until you have access to the rubber/carbon contact strips. Clean the offending contact pad(s) with a cotton bud dipped in a little isopropyl alcohol or denatured alcohol. Some say you can use de-ionised water, but the official line since this type of contact first appeared in the early 1980s is alcohol. Don't use any type of contact cleaner - some will try to eat away the carbon and you'll end up with a permanently dead note. (One lady in the USA ignored my advice, sprayed all her contacts with a cleaner and destroyed some of them. No spares for that model, so it had to be dumped.)

An air can might shift the dust from a contact pad, but the dust will go somewhere, often into another contact pad!

[ChrisH]

Thanks Andy

The offending key started working again after i put the keyboard upside down on the stand and blew clean air into the key and it helped but certainly it's not repaired. I have ordered a spare rubber contact strip just in case but will do a clean once that arrives so if the rubber does require replacing I don't have to open the case twice!

Chris