Okay let me put it another way, rubber membrane keyboards work until grease and other factors ruin them so if there's a way of preventing that from happening then they'll last.
I've seen some manufacturers of devices tackle this problem by putting plastic covers over the keys for example but not all do it, as you say, these extra touches cost money thus add to the bottom line. On 04/02/2012, at 4:15 AM, Martin McCormick wrote: > Dane Trethowan writes: >> of a rubber membrane type so yep, they will wear out very quickly indeed! >> I wonder when manufacturers will stop using this rubbish. > > They'll stop when somebody comes out with something better and > cheaper. That's what drives technology advancement. Nobody > deliberately builds cheap rubbish, but the business of > manufacturing is cut-throat and the game is to build your gadget > cheaper than anybody else can make theirs. We could make things > with modular buttons that you could pop out and replace when one > went bad, but that might double the price of the device in > question and many people just look at the price tag and don't > really care so the beautiful calculator or sound recorder with > the user-replaceable buttons doesn't sell while the one that is > barely holding together and half as much sells like hot cakes. > > Traditional buttons are hard to keep going because they > contain moving parts and springs or rubber pads and these things > wear out. A lot of times now, a button is a piece of rubber with > metallic paint on the bottom or maybe foam plastic impregnated > with carbon to make it conductive. Under that is the circuit > board with a couple of conductive traces sitting under the > button so that they bridge or short together when you push the > rubber down against the circuit board pads. That's about as > cheap as it gets and any rough treatment or deterioration over > time will make it fail. > > The iphone and other touch screen devices are the next > wave of technology because the buttons have no moving parts. You > just change the value of a capacitor when your finger presses > against the screen and those should last a very long time. > > I've even seen buttons that have a light source in them > and a photo cell and work when the button is pressed such that > it blocks the light between the source and the detector. Those > buttons should last as many years as the spring and other > mechanical parts last, but they probably cost twenty times what > one of those rubber buttons does. > > ======================================= > > The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus > and worm-free > > To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web > pages located at > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at > either of the following websites: > > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html > > Or: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> > you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > --------------------------------------- ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
