actually, that's usually overkill. all i usually do is fill the keyboard with distilled water, let it soak a while, rinse with more distilled (i.e. pour out the old and pour in fresh), and then a rinse with everclear (the alcohol makes the water evaporate much, much faster particularly from crevices, which keyboards have a lot of).
if that's not enough, i wash with warm/hot tap water and dish soap, and rinse repeatedly with alternately warm and cold tap water to get all the soap out (the hard part, and you want all the soap out), and then do the distilled water rinse to get out the water hardness and other residue and then do the alcohol dance (being sure there aren't smokers around, they always forget they are carrying fire, and a keyboard full of everclear would flare rather nicely and do a fine job of burning the house down). some dishwasher soap is corrosive, and there's always some residue with the normal rinsing. not a big problem on most older keyboards, but membrane keyboards have thin traces that can corrode through or you could get gunk on the contacts. i also do this to nearly all used hardware i get, taking the logic board and battery and drives out you can wash the case with anything and just do the distilled rinse since they don't have crevices. of course you don't want to wash any hard drives, floppy drives, or anything else mechanical. you also don't want to wash the power supply unless you take it apart and are very, very sure to get it completely dried or you could easily fry the rest of the computer or the power supply etc., and possibly even create a shock hazard. drives require more careful manual cleaning. i use everclear, because it's 90% alcohol, less toxic than other alcohols, safe for plastics, and doesn't leave residue when it dries. most rubbing alcohol is only 70% and leaves a lot of residue when it evaporates, and it won't help dry as much as everclear will in addition to being more toxic (it's really not smart to use rubbing alcohol on skin...). other alcohols will certainly work, if sufficiently high concentration and purity but everclear is probably the cheapest high purity alcohol even with the taxes. it also doesn't take much everclear, even with a keyboard you don't have to fill it up, just slosh some around and then drain, it will aggressively mix with remaining water. with logic boards, i just squirt a little over the board and into connectors before putting in on edge to dry. a large syringe (if you are fortunate enough to live in a state without stupid laws where farm stores carry them, or the ones at the drugstore with a nozzle also work well), or even an ordinary squeeze bottle works well. note however that the power pc chips are allegedly in an alcohol sensitive plastic, though i haven't had a problem, but then again it doesn't get soaked in the alcohol for any length of time. obviously fire is bad while doing this, use ventilation and don't go nuts with the alcohol. -------- > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "PaulKurtz III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "G-List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 7:33 PM > Subject: Re: G3 Blue and White Keyboards and OS 9.1 > > > I hear you can run most keyboards through the dishwasher if you let them > dry > > VERY well. I saw a thread on one somewhere on a LEM list a while back. > > > > Paul --------- -- --S363, aka Philip Stortz-- Find your number at : < http://iharder.sourceforge.net/soundex.php>< http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/06/08/MN253740.DTL> Maybe the real "criminals" are those who claim to be working in the interest of "National Security", the last refuge of the scoundrel... -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
