Hi! I wondered what the best way to clean used keyboards was.
Should I take off the keycaps and put them in water with a little bleach in? Then could I just vacuum out all of the hair and dust from inside the keyboard?
Thanks!
I personally used
metholated spirits when I cleaned both my Northgate Omnikey 101 as well as APC Clicker F-21. I do not know if it is the best way to clean it but it seems I was able to rub off most of the gunk stuck on the keyboard. The results were much better on Northgate Omnikey 101 than on my APC Clicker F-21.
Here are my before and after shots of APC Clicker F-21. I do not have before and after shots of Northgate Omnikey 101:


The keycap was missing on the "!/1" key. That was deliberate as I took another photo of the switch close up. Here is the after shots:


All I used was:
- 1 litre bottle of metholated spirits.
- A random rag.
- An old toothbrush.
- Screwdriver (to undo the screws off.
- A flat head to deal with some of the stabilisers. It was a really small flathead fyi, came from some precision screwdriver set.
The rag was used along with metholated spirits most of the time with an old toothbrush for slightly harder stains. I cleaned each and every keycap by hand followed by disassembly of the keyboard to clean the case. For not being familiar with cleaning let alone on a keyboard it took me a few hours from start to finish.
End result was the fact that the keyboard was still somewhat prone to getting dirty but right now it is nowhere near as dirty as it was before. Again I am not recommending anything in particular but that was how I cleaned my old keyboard.