Cleaning Your Keyboard

[Emery]

I did some searching on here, and couldn't find much(here, sort of) about actually cleaning your keyboard.

If you have any tips on how you do it, or how you "should" do it, feel free to post it here.

I'm not completely OCD about it, but after taking my old keyboard off of the desk and seeing everything that fell out of it, I figure it can't hurt to take off the keycaps and clean out the keyboard once in a while.

Also which products you would recommend, if any. (Cleaning solutions, types of cloth, etc)

[Alex]

Some seem to clean their keycaps with denture cleaning tabs, it worked pretty nice for me aswell.
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?6856-Cleaning-keycaps-with...-denture-cleaning-tabs

What kind of keyboard are you going to clean?

[Emery]

What kind of keyboard are you going to clean?

I just got my Choc Mini in the mail yesterday, so I won't be needing to clean it just yet(or anytime soon hopefully).
But that would be the keyboard in question.

I've always just owned random $5 boards and never really gave it a thought to cleaning them.
But considering I could buy some 20 of those for the price of the Choc Mini, I think I'd like to keep it rather clean both inside and out.

[pitashen]

1. Pull off the keycaps.
2. Hook up the vacuum cleaner
3. Turn on the sucker and vacuum the crap out of it
4. Wipe clean the key caps with damp cloth
5. Install the keycaps back.

[Emery]

Yeah, figures I found the All About Keys and the cleaning section in it, AFTER making this thread

I'm still pretty much a noob at this, so are my keys Cherry MXs?
I think they are, but then again I don't want to be wrong.

[The Solutor]

I friend of mine, who worked as a TV service man for a couple of decades, was used to clean the TV sets with the high pressure water cleaner (the one meant to wash the cars, i don't know how you call it), and now tath televisions are mostly not serviceable, he changed work, but sometimes manages to repair some PCs.

It still uses its old method, and it works, it's just matter of waiting enough to be sure that anything is dry.

A bit rude, but works.

[Chobopants]

I friend of mine, who worked as a TV service man for a couple of decades, was used to clean the TV sets with the high pressure water cleaner (the one meant to wash the cars, i don't know how you call it), and now tath televisions are mostly not serviceable, he changed work, but sometimes manages to repair some PCs.

It still uses its old method, and it works, it's just matter of waiting enough to be sure that anything is dry.

A bit rude, but works.

Hrm, there are a lot of little parts that water could get trapped in that would make drying...difficult. Also would have to be careful to not bend any tiny parts as well as take the CMOS battery out first, but I'm sure it can be done.

[YetAnotherDeveloper]

i'm always cleaned out pc/tv/etc with my air compressor and i have started cleaning my keys with the denture tabs and it seems to work well... i have noticed that if i wipe with a cotton cloth after the cleaning help even more(the keys). in between cleanings i just keep a micro fiber rag around that i wipe things down with each day.  you can slide it in between the key as well.  i also use it as a dust cover while i'm not using the keyboard.

[keyb_gr]

Trying to find a Wiki at Geekhack is like looking for a needle in Donald Trump's hair.  Or his birth certificate.

I can still remember a time when this wasn't an issue at all, like one or two years ago. Then, it appears, they started breeding like rabbits. Not sure how that took place.