Dell RT7D60 Keyboard "Coffee Bath" - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2012, 08:00:29 pm
content: Just a quick one.Well my keyboard took a coffee bath this morning. The lid started leaking on the mug, so I just took it off. Bad idea I guess. The keyboard is a Dell RT7D60 with built in smart-card reader (that I have never used). It came with the PC back in the day. Nothing special, but I can type really fast on it and I figured I'd tear it apart and see if I could clean it up.After taking off about a million (ok actually 12) screws from the back, I was surprised to find a really good design.The whole top with the keys attached comes off in one piece. The way they have it set up is that the top acts like a catch tray that keeps liquids from getting to the key membrane. And it worked! There was a bunch of coffee in the top, but none on the membrane.The membrane is a three piece job where the bottom two pieces have ribbon cables to the PCB and the top holds the actual depressable contacts. They have solid alignment posts and it was super easy to get them back into alignment after I played with it.There really isn't anything special with the PCB. It has that additional smart card reader function, but I don't' have any smart cards to test it with.So there you go. Good job Dell on making a "spill resistant" keyboard. I'm typing this on it now in fact. I just took the whole top to the sink and rinsed it out. After a couple years of eating at my desk, it needed it anyway.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 15, 2012, 08:30:21 pm
content: Good keyboard. you can plug any bank card with a chip into that smart reader, they will do something, as the contact arrangement is a standard.Most of the cheap keyboards I see do not survive the coffee test. I wash mine with a damp paint brush, holding it vertical and leaving it to dry overnight like that every few months. So old it has an XT style DIN plug on it, and an old XT extender cable with a DIN to mini DIN at the PC end.Other keyboard is a old Microsoft USB that is from around 2000, still works perfectly, though the keytops are losing lettering now.

author: akcoder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2012, 07:50:13 am
content: almost all of your membranes keyboards are spill resistant. I've actually killed probably 3 or 4 of them. And not 1 of them has died on me right when I spill. It usually takes 2 or 3 days of MASH in the keys for the liquid to work its way in.on the IBM T 60 series laptops, there's actually dedicated holes through the chassis for liquids to spell out of. I discovered this after I dumped a large cup of water on my work laptop and proceeded to take the thing apart to dry it out. I noticed that there was actually channels in the keyboard module and holes in the chassis for liquid to drain out the bottom.-dan

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 16, 2012, 07:36:44 pm
content: That was the cool thing about the catch tray design here. Since all the key sockets are raised like islands on the top piece, no liquid got on the membrane at all from what I could tell.Day 2... Still going strong.

author: akcoder
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 17, 2012, 02:31:29 am
content: Quote from: Smokey on October 16, 2012, 07:36:44 pmIf you had let the liquid sit in there and continued to type on it, within 3 days it would have failed. Usually the "M" or ones on the same matrix line are the ones that go because the liquid ever so slowly works its way in. Been there, done that, ruined a lot of keyboards :-)-dan

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 29, 2015, 03:34:49 am
content: Not that anyone cares... but I'm typing this on the very same keyboard. Still going strong. It's just about due for another coffee bath.

author: German_EE
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2015, 07:26:15 am
content: Experience has taught me that it's not the tea or the coffee that's the problem, it's the sugar that people (sometimes) put in it. The sugar sets to a sticky mess that makes the keys stick. Fizzy drinks are of course lots worse.

author: bookaboo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 30, 2015, 07:50:18 am
content: Back when I used to fix stuff on the side I found that if a fizzy drink was spilled on a PCB it didn't seem to matter how well you cleaned it with IPA or whatever, the corrosion would restart after you finished the repair. You would see the same unit back in 6 months as if it was slowly being over etched.

author: Smokey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2017, 08:42:33 am
content: 2 year check in... Same keyboard still working...