wasted39
December 3rd, 2006, 12:49 AM
Well, this was my first foray into fixing a keyboard. I took the keyboard out of my platinum IIe and looked it over. Seems that the individual keyswitches could be removed if the two solder points on the board were desoldered. I desoldered them, low and behold, the keyswitch pops out if you grab it with a pair of needle nose pliers. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the whole keyswitch was just popped together with two plastic spring type mechanisms. I took the switch apart to discover that the switch was actually a leaf type of sorts. After about an hour of experimentation and continuity testing, I found out the leaves were not contacting each other when the key was pressed down. I bent the main contact to actually give it more "spring" and retested with a multimeter. After reassembling the switch I popped it back into its spot on the keyboard and retested it. The switch seemed to be making continuity so I resoldered into the board and reassembled the computer. So far so good. Now that I know what to do I can troubleshoot the other bothersome keys. Before all this I was looking on the internet for any disassembly instructions and found a place that has shrinkwrapped IIe keyboards on the net. Soon as I get some money, I'll be picking one of these up. All in all it actually was fun. And besides, it keeps me out of trouble and my wife's hair. :)
http://vintagemicros.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/28/products_id/147?osCsid=56662c4cdd6277575d571ee8c5ebee70
http://vintagemicros.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/28/products_id/147?osCsid=56662c4cdd6277575d571ee8c5ebee70