lube is killing my switches?

[Jixr]

Hey everyone, awhile back I changed my QF XT from reds to blacks, and in the process, lubed the switches with some teflon silicone lube, and Its been giving me some major problems.

Certain keys won't register, and sometimes keys will hang so on input will give many.

What is the best way to clean these out?

I was thinking alcohol in a syringe and squirt a few drops into the keys, and see if that flushes some of the oils out.

[Findecanor]

The only way to get rid of silicone oil is to wipe it off. I know of no solvent that can remove it.

[keymaster]

Before you lubed your switches, did you desolder the switches from the PCB? I'm wondering if it's not the lube, but rather some of the switches not being soldered on properly.

[Jixr]

All the switches were desoldered, and at first, I thought that was the issue as well, but I re-did all the keys that were wonky.

[Photoelectric]

That seems like poor electrical connection or bent metal contact leaves inside switches, rather than anything lubrication can do, for the non-working switches.  Unless you got lube between the leaf parts too.  The repeated keystrokes could be from that (damage to the leaf or lube on the metal parts or else just the lube being so viscous, the stems are not recoiling upward fast enough).  Is there any damage on the PCB where the re-soldered switches are located?  Could you take a high resolution photograph of the areas on the PCB where the non-working switches are soldered?

[Jixr]

I honestly think I might have over-lubed the switches, I don't imagine I bent a leaf, as the keys do work, but on the few certain keys, you kinda have to click them a few times before it will start to register and work normally.

Its my work board, so I really can't take it home till this weekend.

Also, I have several autohotkey scripts, but none of them have anything to do with the alpha keys. Could that possibly cause issues?



Also, it was a demo model from whoever the CM guy is around here, no warranty or serial, so it could be an early model with a bug or two.

( it could also be my work computer, for whatever reason, it has several kwirks that my home computer does not seem to have )

Come to think of it,  I should replace my cable as well, on my QFR the cable was bad and some keys were missing inputs, new cable fixed that up. took me awhlie to figure that one out.

[zoolzoo]

what brand of lube did you use?

[Dreamre]

How much lube did you use?

[Jixr]

I used 3m silicone with teflon lube, Probably about a drop in each switch.


This weekend i'll just pop the problem keys off, clean em and put em back in.

[demik]

im ron burgundy?

but yeah, clean them and don't go crazy with the lube if you decide to lube them again.

[Photoelectric]

Agreed.  A drop of lube sounds like a lot, actually--can you find a very fine soft brush in an art store or cosmetics depatment?  Just dip the tip and very lightly brush lube on so you can barely see it--just some shine.

[demik]

huehue just the tip