Introducción
I had an Apple Wireless keyboard come in with two keys non-functioning. This was due to damage from a spill.
It is very difficult to disassemble this keyboard without destroying it because there is only one screw - holding in the logic board. Everything else is glued and welded shut. But there is a way to get in and repair it so that it can be re-assembled with no signs on the outside.
Qué necesitas
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Start by unscrewing the battery compartment cap on the LHS of the keyboard and removing the two AA cells.
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Next, turn the keyboard upside-down and locate the grey plastic cover. Apply firm inward squeezing pressure to the cover and lift it off away from the keyboard.
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The cover is held in place by six clips, so you may need to use a plastic prying tool to coax it off.
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You will also need to remove the keys. Every single one. And their clips. Go slow, and don't pull at the keys. Use your prying tool to unsnap them from their clips.
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Using a prying tool, or fingernails if you prefer, carefully lift up the locking bar, releasing the ribbon cable from it's connector on the logic board.
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The ribbon is quite delicate, so if you encounter resistance while disconnecting it, stop and make sure the connector is unlocked. Don't pull sideways or diagonally as you may tear the ribbon.
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Now locate the one and only screw in this keyboard. Treating it with the utmost respect, carefully unscrew it and set it aside - savouring the moment - because later on you'll wish there were more of them.
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With care, rotate the logic board assembly anti-clockwise (looking at the power button) until the circuit board is ~90° from it's starting position and now facing up.
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Slide the assembly out of the keyboard through the end with the power button. If you encounter resistance try rotating the board slightly more or less until it slides out with ease.
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Take care to hold the delicate ribbon cable out of the way while doing this to avoid accidentally tearing it.
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This is the point of no return. If you are not sure you want to continue, this is your last chance. Everything up until now can be undone with ease.
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Put your keyboard in the oven at 100-150°C and bake until golden brown. (To clarify, do not leave it in that long!). Allow the entire keyboard to reach temperature and idle there for about 5 minutes, then remove it from the oven. Careful, it's hot!
Esto es en serio?
A much better alternative: Leave the keyboard under a stationary, portable hand dryer for 30min.
Soak the part in alcohol for 24 hours. Then the glue is softened and the parts can easily be disassembled.
Sebastian: even though alcohol is non-conductive, sometimes it does cause glitches. I have yet to find an explanation for that. But it sure sounds much less brutal than sitting in an oven.
150 is above many plastics softening temperature, and if going down that route, I’d remove the keycaps first.
I’m about to find out, as WSX and 2 keys decided to take an extended vacation.
Alcohol will often contain at least a small amount of water, which will promote corrosion of the contacts. Anhydrous alcohol would not have this problem however as it dissolves adhesives they may propagate to the contacts and coat them sufficiently to cause issues. Using heat will soften the adhesive while keeping it in situ. Plastics will also soften somewhat so care is required.
Dan -
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Do not rush this next step. Using a prying tool, gently ease an edge of the plastic cover up. You may need a razor blade to get this started as there's not much clearance.
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Now, use the prying tool to separate the cover from the now softened adhesive holding it down. Do not be tempted to pull or bend it, this plastic cover is very thin ABS and will distort.
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We all know Apple is fond of glue, but now you have spot welds to deal with! Underneath the cover is an adhesive coated aluminium plate, welded to the aluminium body in no less than 100 separate locations.
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This is where your drill comes in. Drill out each and every weld, being careful not to drill too deep or damage the externally visible edges.
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Your drill holes should not be deep enough to have straight sides, so they shouldn't really be holes at all. Just a countersinking depth will do.
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Make certain you have drilled out every weld, then begin to pry the edges of the plate up. It is extremely thin and you will not be able to remove it without bending it slightly. Don't worry, that can be fixed later.
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If you encounter a weld that is still stuck, stop, and re-drill it. Again don't rush or be tempted to pull and bend the plate.
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Finally, we're in!
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Now you've removed the metal plate, you'll be presented with the membrane we need to repair.
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The ribbon cable from earlier is a part of it, and it needs to be fished through it's tiny slot before you can remove the membrane. There may be a little glue holding the membrane down, in which case pull up slowly at a shallow angle to release it.
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Underneath the membrane it is a sheet with tactile domes serving to press the pads on the membrane together. This sheet can stay here as it's of no concern to us.
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The membrane is composed of two thin layers of plastic that are - guess what...glued together. They are very difficult to separate and patience is key.
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Use a thin blade to separate the layers at a corner (it helps to start at the corner closest to the faulty keys) and very slowly peel the layers apart. You probably won't need to separate them all the way, just enough to expose the region of the defective key should do.
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On the inside you'll find a mess of white lines and dots. These are the conductive traces. Track down the two pads that align under the key(s) you are having problems with.
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With your multimeter, set to measure continuity, check there are no breaks in the tracks between the pad in question and it's neighbours. You can follow the lines to see which ones should be electrically connected. Some areas are coated in plastic, so you'll have to work around them.
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Try to find the exact point where the track is broken, and make a note of where it is. A page marker is great for this.
Hi Dan. I have some dead keys on a MacPro USB full size keyboard. I imagine the tear down will be much the same. Tracing the dead keys on the membrane, will bad continuity be only in the region of the key? So I’m my case the A key, will the continuity break just be between the A key ‘dot’ and one of its neighbors?
Not necessarily. They’re wired in a matrix so there could be a break at any point between the key and the ribbon connector and this might not be anywhere near the key, although more often after a spill it will just be corrosion on the contact pads. If it’s just corroded this can sometimes be fixed by polishing the pads with a fibreglass pencil.
Dan -
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Once you've found any and all breaks in the membrane circuit, get your conductive paint and shake it well to mix the solid silver with the solvent.
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Use a thin brush or a cocktail stick to apply a small, thin layer of the paint right over the area(s) with the fault you located. If you have a dip pen this will work even better.
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Allow at least 24 hours to dry.
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If there are gaps in your newly applied paint, apply a second coat and allow another 24 hours for that to dry.
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Now check the same area with your multimeter. If it's worked, there should no longer be a fault. So grab a drink and celebrate! That's the tricky stuff over. If it hasn't worked, use your multimeter to find the exact spot where the track is still broken and add another layer of paint.
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It's worth testing your repair before you go to the effort of re-assembling your keyboard.
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Lay the membrane back down in place, making sure it's the right way around, and feed the ribbon cable back through the slot into the logic board compartment.
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Follow the instructions in Step 3, 2 and 1 in reverse and re-install the logic board and batteries. You don't need to put the grey plastic cover back on.
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Connect the keyboard to a Mac computer and from the underside, gently press on each pad to check the corresponding key works.
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If you find any key that is still not working, you'll have to get back in with the multimeter and find the fault. Remember it could be on either side of the membrane and it may not be visible by eye,
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Once you're satisfied your keyboard is now fully working, turn it off, re-install the thin metal plate and use superglue to replace the welds and hold it down. Apply firm pressure so there are no gaps.
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This will take a while, but it's worth doing properly because those welds were important! They stopped the entire keyboard from popping out when you press on a key. The superglue will suffice and with the added benefit of being easily removed if you need to re-enter the keyboard.
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If the adhesive on the back of the plate is still in fairly good condition, you should be able to stick the white plastic cover back on. If not, use a little glue.
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You can now re-install the grey plastic cover and every single key on the keyboard. To do this, apply pressure between two fingers to clip the keys back on, one on the underside. This will stop the glue from breaking.
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That's it! Test it again to make sure it works. If it does you're clear to start using it again. Just be mindful that the structure has been compromised. Smashing your fists on the keys at any time will undo your work gluing it back together.
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
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25 comentarios
What was the total time to do this repair? I did the original tear down but didn't think this was even possible. Congratulations on your resolve to succeed. You'll do well in life if you don't waste to much time ;-)
Hi,
It took me about 48 hours allowing two coats of conductive paint to fully dry; maybe two hours actually working on it, figuring everything out as I went along.
Dan -
Hi Mayer,
did you make the photos tear down the keyboard? Could you share the guide photos?
Can you clarify bullet points 2 and 3 under Step 6? Since the aluminum plate is directly below (or above, once it's flipped) the aluminum body, how can the holes be drilled without damaging the body? If we are drilling the welds OUT, how does that work exactly? Thanks for this.
Since they're only spot welds, drilling them out doesn't require going very deep into the body. No more than a millimetre in fact. So the body will be damaged, but only on the inside of the unit where it won't be visible after reassembly.
Hope that helps!
Dan -
Holy !&&* you figured this all out as you went along?? That's talent right there. Thank you sir for the amazing guide!
Will the heat from step 4 destroy the membrane? Nice work
Came here looking for how to replace rubber foot pad. Thanks for showing me what was going on inside (lotsa glue!) before I tried to pry off the corner.
If you're interested:
The little rubber foot pops back in nicely if you curl it between your fingers, press it into the recess, and work in the rest of the rubber edge with the pointed end of a plastic spudger.
Perfect. It worked for me!
My keyboard started to have problems while connecting with bluetooth. I was lucky and got an used logic board from ebay for 10$.
The instruction was exactly what I needed. I only needed the first three steps and now it works again.
Thank you!
Im about to get into this exact repair. Thank you for going before me and the rest of us. I had done everything minus pulling off ALL the keys and began prying at the plastic base when I remembered how I butchered and hacked into my late Galaxy S 7 edge completly destroying every single part in my path because I refused to stop and look online for a guide. That wont happen again thanks to you...well at least I can blame someone else if its destroyed. Ill post my results asap but dont hold your breath.
Two days work? The risk that your repair will not work, or will only last until you drop the keyboard? It’s cheaper to buy a new keyboard. That said, thanks for the description.
Is it possible to only Partially remove that metal backing plate, in order to access the damaged area of the keyboard? My keyboard has a dead Tab key.
A workaround is to use Karabiner-Elements to remap the ‘Approximately equal to’ key, between the left Shift and Z keys to act as Tab. Not perfect, since one rarely-used key is now unavailable, but it took minutes to find the free software, install it and remap the key, over a year ago, and I’ve only really needed that key once in that time. [Simply quitted and then reloaded Karabiner for that.]
Alternative ‘spare’ keys, depending upon your keyboard use, include §, ], [, or maybe even one of the Command and Alt keys.
The biggest disadvantage is that, when using a different keyboard, the wrong key for Tab keeps being used!
I’m tempted to attempt this one just for the fun of it! The guide is beautifully written. But my problem is a torn tactile membrane - the little nub under a keycap got worn off - and I’d have to jury rig something in its place.
My keyboard was perfect, so i dropped some coffee on the right side, and a few keys (10 i think) stopped working! This process you did here work for my case? I don’t know what to do, in my country this keyboard is very expensive and no one repair it.
I'm sorry for you, but is not worth. This is the most difficult repair from Apple so far that I did. In the end you have to broke you keyboard to open it, and it never be the same once opened.
Thank you for this interesting guide! Would you by any chance happen to have a picture of the full trace matrix (like in step 8 but from the other side)? The idea behind my question is that one could follow down the traces of the faulty key(s) without having to disassemble the keyboard entirely :).
Anybody here know how that ribbon cable works? I have read about apple laptops and wireless keyboards having the same fault as mine where keys 1 to 9 and the function keys above them and either the left or right shift stop working. I have reseated the ribbon cable several times, but i am wondering if there is one connection which could go bad to account for this fault.
pin 22(F1~F9,and right shift)、pin 21(1-9,and left control),pin 24 near F5. pin 1 near F9. Your fault is more like a broken wire at the root of the fpc, not the head. Need to remove the film surface protection and apply conductive silver paste
bunnyman -
I recently bought an Apple Magic Keyboard - 2nd hand - but key pressures are highly varied and often do not record a stroke. What could this be? Any idea how to fix it?
Maybe you have DIRT between the key caps and the keyboard membrane.
Pry off the key caps ( on the worst keys first ! ) and clean it … if you have dried liquid on your membrane, it may also be corroded.
If you are lucky, you may be able to blow out dry dirt with compressed air without having to take off the key caps.
MEX -
I made a full video of how to fix this keyboard. You can find it here: https://youtu.be/HRSaTy96Nuw. Also, there's a link in the description where you can find high resolution photos of the membrane and the traces—that should be a big help. And no offense to the original poster—your guide and work is definitely appreciated!—but I don't think super glue is how you should be putting this back together. I showed an alternate, more permanent fix in the video.
Self-tappers is a great solution! It should’ve been made with screws in the first place, but I’m sure blind tapped holes add a lot to cost of manufacture.
Surprisingly the CA glue holding mine together is still there doing it’s job but admittedly I have been very gentle with it since the operation.
Dan -
My small tool kit bit for this size screw is too tapered, so I used my trusty little iFixit screwdriver. Problem is the screwdriver doesn’t provide enough grip area to remove this tenacious screw without stripping it. The screwdriver does have a hex at the end of the handle, which is 9/32” inch. Get a socket and handle, or even a 1/4” ratchet handle and you’ll have an easier time removing it.
Dennis Johnston - Contestar
Make sure you’re using a Philips driver and not pozi, they have different taper angles and are technically incompatible
Dan -