Jane Andreas wrote: > OK, the photo shoot is done. Thanks ! I'm afraid this doesn't look too good, though. From your original description, I thought just the plastic keycap had come off. But the picture suggests that the damage goes deeper. Here's what I think the situation is like:
The keyboard consists of the PCB-mounted contact plus the key assembly. The PCB-mounted contacts are small metal domes held in place (and isolated) with a transparent adhesive film. This is what you're seeing in that hole. The key assembly seems to consist of a rubber sheet, a thin metal sheet, and the keycaps. (When you take the Ben apart, you can easily remove the keyboard assembly and examine it.) I think the metal sheet's purpose is mainly to prevent the rubber sheet from being pulled from the Ben. It has openings for all the keys. The rubber sheet seems to be a single piece. It is shaped such that each key has a "dome" and a knob in the middle. So the base of the rubber sheet is below the metal sheet and the domes extend a bit above it. The keycaps appear to be glued to the rubber sheet. Now, in your picture, rubber still seems to be attached to the key, complete with the knob in the middle. If I understand the assembly correctly, this means that the metal has cut through the rubber. If you push in the key, it may still be held in place by friction, but it will probably fall out again. I'm not sure if adding glue would make things better or worse. You could remove the keyboard and try to glue the key back into the rubber sheet, with some super glue. This would have to be done from the bottom, or you'd risk gluing the key to the metal, which probably won't be so good. An alternative would be to apply some elastic glue at the edge of the key and to glue it directly to the PCB. Again, I'm not sure if this would make things better or worse. Also, after this change, each time you disassemble the Ben and separate the key assmbly from the keyboard, the repaired key would be torn off again. If you can get a replacement key assembly, replacing the broken one would be easy enough. The Ben is not very difficult to disassemble. - Werner _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
