This is the most interesting video that I have seen more in recent years !!! You are really patient ! I have 5 broken imac keyboards (more than 500$) It's a scandal to make irreparable accessories like this. Imagine the pollution on a global scale.
The aluminum keyboard I got with my 2010 Mac Pro, quit working this past week actually. That's with 15 years of heavy usage. Apple doesn't have to make their products user repairable because they function well past their warranty date. 15 years use out of any computer peripheral is pretty damn impressive. Ive been through 3 $1000 TVs in the time I started using that keyboard. Ill gladly spend another $150 on an apple keyboard.
@@MrSharesky I went through 3 Apple Keyboards in 2 years. All were replaced under warranty, but would not spend my own money on another one. I'll go elsewhere when this one fails.
@@ftrueck they have a massive sustainability department headed up by former director of the US EPA . Right to Repair is something Apple needs to get their head around. Just getting worse by the day.
This isn't just Apple, I had a Microsoft Natural Keyboard 20 years ago that had the same type of Membrane. This is what cost reduction/cheap manufacturing has done. They've reduced the cost of keyboards to the point where they literally are just pieces of plastic paper with the tiniest metal printed on them. Very easy to break/corrode/damage. None of this stuff is designed to be repairable and it's a real shame that Electronics has gotten to this point. Makes a good argument for buying mechanical keyboards.
I did this myself a week ago, pain staking process each individual key and each individual key bracket etc. When I realised the circuit board was basically laminated with membrane I knew then the damage was irreversible so continued to dig deeper as curiousity got the better of me. Great video, nice to know I'm not the only one 🤣
Great demonstration. I had planned to buy and clean up a used keyboard, but now I'll focus on an inexpensive aftermarket solution...you saved me a lot of time and headache!
Thank you Vince for your video. I Just repaired mine, by opening it with hot air gun, and a slunger like you. Then, jiggled the junction between layers you mentioned at @49:38 without removing the welded part.... and voilà ! Back to life ! Thank you so much !!!!!
I knew this was going to be the membrane! It's the same issue in old retro systems too, but the difference in those older systems - you can repair them. Well worth tearing that one down to show us exactly what was wrong with it! Stuff like this puts me off buying Apple!
Interesting and informative exploration - thanks. Would not have thought an hour long video on failing to fix a keyboard would be watchable, but your curiosity and enthusiasm drew me in!
4 ปีที่แล้ว +100
The more you look at stuff like this, the more it becomes apparent that Apple went out of their way to specifically design these devices so they cannot be repaired/serviced. The fact that they're not cheap makes it even worse. Those traces on the keyboard membranes must be so thin that any contact with water would cause it to corrode to the point where the contact would oxidise, entirely losing its conductivity. It's probably not even metal, but some kind of composite that's etched or sprayed onto the plastic sheet during manufacture. Something designed to wear out after only a year or so. Sounds a bit conspiratorial, I know, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if that were the case.
Mind you, the threat of water damage is as old as membrane keyboards themselves, and has been known for decades - IBM started including drain holes something like 30 years ago in an attempt to mitigate the problem (a tradition that continued in Thinkpads up to quite recently, newer ones are supposed to be sealed). Rubber dome keyboards will often have a continuous silicone sheet with the domes that'll provide waterproofing without too much effort. Notebook-style scissor switch mechanisms traditionally don't have that, and so neither does this keyboard. I wouldn't say they were designed so that they _couldn't_ be repaired - but rather under the assumption that they _wouldn't._ There was literally zero concern. Not a huge difference in end result, mind you. This sort of stuff actually isn't all that rare, if you have a newish car it probably contains several electronic modules that are essentially (expensive) throwaways as well - but to be fair, their weatherproofing also needs to be extremely good. Now the recent Macbook keyboards that have a habit of breaking if you look at them wrong and basically requite the entire top case assembly to be replaced unless you want to be ripping out lots of glued crap? That's positively nasty.
@@PileOfEmptyTapes Sad but true :( Looks great, but if anything breaks you can throw it away. I guess you could build the same keyboard but with a few screws to unscrew and clean.
The way these keyboards work is that they have a matrix with a keyswitch at every intersection. The microcontroller sends voltage down a column line, and looks to see if it comes out on any of the row lines. If a key is pressed, then it connects a column to a row. The arrangement of the matrix probably doesn't match up with the actual physical arrangement of the keys completely.
Hi, This is by far the best tear down video of this keyboard. I have the same keyboard which stopped working suddenly. I've tried all the tips that are available on forums and TH-cam , nothing seems to help. So I bought a mechanical keyboard which is great but I miss the low profile format of this keyboard. Anyway thanks for the great video. And if there's a way to fix it without taking it apart which is irreversible, please make it your next video.
I love fixing stuff but you convinced me that as much as I love this keyboard when you have a few keys that start failing after a "beverage" spill it isn't worth it. Cheers!
Good video Vince. The tracks on the membrane under the keys are very thin and can go bad with age or contamination. Sometimes it's obvious because they go a dark color as you saw. I've repaired older keyboards with broken tracks on the membrane by using a "circuit writer" pen, which is just a conductive ink. First I would take apart the keyboard and wash all the plastic parts and membranes in the bath tub and lay them out to dry on towels. My experience is with older keyboards which are much easier to take apart but these apple keyboards are obviously much more difficult...
honestly I feel like my mate vince is a very under rated youtuber because he has very good content and spends a lot of money on things to make videos on.
Blimey! Last time I saw that many layers, I was peeling an onion! Surely with that many layers they could find some way of waterproofing the keyboard. Unlucky on this one, you were always going to be up against it, still a good informative video, hope you don't face the same problems with the other 2! Keep up the good work Vince!
Very interesting video, I got a bunch of these sitting around with faulty wires / boards, you’ve inspired me to try open a few of them up see if I can swap out the boards and get a few back out into working order. I did try before but I nearly stabbed myself tryna open em up. Such a shame they are glued on so strongly compared to the newer ones.
hey thank you for this video - even though you did not suggest we could fix some of these issues i appreciate your thorough examination of the problem. Annoying that apple would allow such a high priced keyboard to be such a dud for so many of us after a ridiculously short period of use. Anyway - thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the video! My case is a bit odd, because only the number keys stopped working after a casual clean with rubbing alcohol, but the "zero" is working. So 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 not working. This way I can't pair the keyboard or enter any passwords which renders my keyboard useless. It's the smaller model with no num pad. Mouse keys is unchecked. I tried everything offered in blogs and discussions, but nothing works. Any ideas?
@@dragon940carp6 and of course I'm only joking, but "Our Vince" is a bit of a hottie in a "cute guy next-door" kind of way...and seems like a really nice bloke too. No offense intended 😄 But yeah...I would 🤣
I think the aluminum is just there to make it feel higher quality than it actually is. Because without it, the keyboard would feel like typing on a Happy Meal toy.
Thank you for the video... after seeing the dirts from the keyboard in the water, i decided to lift the faulty keys with my finger and blow them hard with my mouth, and boom it worked like magic. Thank you.
Very enjoyable forensic deconstruction of an Apple Mac USB external keyboard. I was drawn in becuase I have this exact model USB keyboard and it's shwowing many similar issues. Whereas I was hoping to see a fixed keyboard at the end, it was really quite useful to see all of the problems these can have. The further positive comments down below indicate that your hard work was worth all of the effort.
X & Y interrogation lines scan for a key down. These are driven by two binary counters that are converted to decimal interrogation lines. {Rows & columns are X & Y}. The scan speed has to be fast enough to catch a typing speed of around 5 chars pers sec or a bit more. At the instant that a key down is detected the value of the binary counters is frozen and transmitted to a look-up table that interprets which key it is. This will be passed to the display section but don't worry about that. Its quite mind-blowing enough. Excellent video and well done for persisting. You have done well. I have done these and re-welded them back with some JB Weld. For some machines the complete membrane is available. {HP for certain}. :
I recently tried to fix Mac pro a2338 keyboard Butter spilled with 99% iso propyl alcohol black substance under two layers appeared after watching your video now I know keyboard must be replaced without wasting time Very helpful video Thanks lot
Have the same keyboard, had issues with keys not working (i spilt red bull on it) so put through dish washer (warm wash no soap) and when it was finished i put on radiator for a day and when i tried again it worked fine... also had one in office that had same issue as yours, only a few keys working, took home and also put through dish washer, same results, working fine now...
you should think about a dremel tool, then you can grind away those joints. very useful tool. another comment said you could use conductive paint/marker and the like to restore those connections👍 great vid any how
Thanks for spotting out the root cause. I have a magic keyboard + a macbook air which few keys do not work. Intended to repair but after watching this I decided not to waste the time!
Hi, I have a question 🙋♂️. I’m currently building a 17 inch mac book pro with the internals of a M1 Mac Mini and I was originally planning on removing/ cutting into the case in order to fit in another high end keyboard however, I’ve also come across the teensy board which would allow me to rewire de signals from the ribbon to usb… unfortunately that all seems too tedious and I’m afraid the keys won’t really match in the end. Since this keyboard is mechanically similar to early mac book pros’ do you reckon the chips on this external keyboard could be used as the encoder for the inbuilt macbook pro keyboard?
Vince you’ve learnt a few things which is worth it Welds are just solder Don’t clean using anything but IPA Heat up before dissembling I think you’ll have more success with next one
You say that it´s well made, I don´t think so. They made a keyboard that can´t be opened without destroying it and it´s not water proof. So it means if you have the bad luck to spill some liquid in your keyboard. It´s gone...... it´s just a matter of time....
This is a problem with thin membrane keyboards in general. I killed my Logitech K800 with literally 2 or 3 mL of filtered tap water landing on the arrow keys.
I agree. I have many Thinkpads and all of them still work. I can replace most of the parts, especially the most failure points, battery, keyboard, ssd. Currently use a Lenovo L380 and stuck 32 gigs of ram in it, everything in it is replaceable by the user.
The fact they can't be repaired is such a pain! I have one that works but it's in rough shape (crushed edges and missing keys) and a broken one in mint condition and I was planning to put the working electronics in the working one. Guess not after seeing this. I'll just swap the missing caps over and leave the crushed aluminium edges as they are.
On my USB Apple keyboard I just bought (used) the keys 6 z h n are not working - one whole string. Would I have to open it too? I think that's too much work and b) I can't fix it then either (those metal channels)
Thanks for this. I was heating my keyboard to try to pry it open, and I put this video on at the same time. I realized I could just stop and throw it in the bin Instead of wasting more time dismantling it. No way I could repair this. Also, mine was broken because I got a few droplets of beer on it, because I suddenly had to cough while I had a sip of beer in my mouth. ( looked funny though ). So they are very fragile when it comes to moisture. Mine stopped working over night, I guess because of the corrosion process it had a delay. I will buy a cheap new one or second hand one instead. My mac works with other brands of keyboards, so there is no problems in buying logitech or other cheap stuff.
@24:38 I thought that was going to work... I look at time remaining, and see 30 more minutes.... nope.. saw that coming...LOL Love your videos man, I am ordering up a soldering station cause I started watching your videos, I love tinkering and taking things apart as well, just to see how it works. Used to do it when I was young, turning 50 and I need a new hobby anyways.
if you get something wet you need to let it dry for a few days if you can't get it apart to do it. water don't kill stuff. electric added to wet stuff does.what made you think spot welds? i never seen them ever in electronics. i would have thought they were solder and desolder them.
Hi Vince, I was very interested in this video as I have a broken keyboard of the same type. I'm thinking that it may not be rust from water that you have seen, as the backplate is not made of ferrous metal, It's more likely to be coffee, the weak acids from which would etch the traces over time. All pretty academic as it couldn't be fixed. I do wonder if bathing in IPA may have been a better move, as it is more likely to clean than cause shorts. I may have a go and if successful, will let you know. Keep up the great work!
The number keypad switches between the number input and the function input on those keys. Toggle the NumLock button to switch between the modes. The mode that was being used was function (arrow) keys at the initial test at 3:42
gotta love apple so "elegant" and "simplistic" it only works if everything is 100% perfect. Still always interesting to see you fault finding and trying to fix stuff no matter how insane the company who initially made the product is.
I am an Apple fan, but I do really wish that they made their hardware more repairable. That said, even if it was possible to open one of these easily, they would still almost never get repaired, so I think Apple just decided that they might as well make it sealed. At least the keys and scissor mechanisms are replaceable, which hasn't been the case with the most recent MacBook Pros until the just-released 16" model. This was an interesting video. I have a couple of these keyboards (and never had any issues with them for what it's worth) but I never knew what they looked like inside.
wonder when people start realizing that apple products are build to a cheap price and sold to a price where only fans can afford to buy em. Apple gives a shit about serviceability.
Designed in California, clued in China. These are terrible keyboards, I have 3 of them and all the same issues (hower all different keys). There is theory that these keyboards are pressed (to tighten the glue - too tight) at the factory and this maybe already damage a small piece of the horrible fragile membrane or damage it over time by the crazy amount of pressure inside the glued materials. This is not designed for repair, a real shame. You can take out the PCB and mount it under a desk to provide 2 usb ports.
Much appreciated you took the time to do that pal I learned something and thankyou!! Also, looks hardware but I hear theres a firmware issue with them sometimes also
When I wash a circuit board with water or alcohol, it has to be quickly dried off and then left for a few days to allow moisture under the chips to evaporate.
@Smattless when soldering I clean with 70% alcohol. It still will linger under IC's, so I leave it for a day or so before powering up. On motors I will use water and compressed air, then run them until warm to dry out.
kudos for persistence. that was really helpful for a guy without tools and on a remote desert island. right now my shift button has fallen into the abyss. but i'm not 'going in', no sir.
Im glad I found this tutorial. So this is my issue, yesterday I decided to wipe down my keyboard (the same one in this tutorial). All I did was I used a damp hand towel, and went across the keyboard to remove some smudge and dirt off of the keys.. The keyboard was connected to my mac. After I noticed that the green led light indicator for the caps lock was not lighting up anymore. So I went online to see what could be the issue (I have El Capitan by the way). So I tried holding down the caps lock key for a second, tapping it 5 times, tapping the alt/option key 5 times, so on and so forth. Now when I hit the caps lock key it still doesn't light up but now the d key wont work, unless I click on the caps lock again. but also other keys will not work when the caps lock key is initiated. Do you have any idea what could be the issue? I have tried to do a pram reset and nothing. Your help will be very much appreciated. Thank you Also if the caps lock is initiated certain keys like the o, or p would actually eject the cd carrier.
Like 6 years ago I washed it, keys removed, under tap water. The only thing I damaged was the usb power with a very inconsistent connection. But apart that, it's working fine, for 12 years now. I know it's value, and I salvaged some others all those years, but latter versions are so sensible now, they definitely don't like liquid whatsoever. I can't get over it. I don't have mac anymore, but all my PC has an wired apple alu keyboard.
Very interesting Vince, enjoyed that. Glad to see you have a Dyson Hairdryer lol. Bought the other half one for Christmas, near broke the bank lol. Keep up the good work. Mick 👍🍻
That keyboard is never going to type again. A good thing about this keyboard being broken and you experimenting whit it, is that you have a greater chance a getting the other keyboards working when you get them :)
You can soften and/or remove the adhesive with Naphtha - sold as Zippo Lighter Fluid, Ronsonol Lighter Fluid, or VM&P (varnish makers and paint) grade naphtha (quart size) from a paint store. Squirt and wipe off. Gloves recommended. Similar but stronger than IPA. I use it to clean sticky goo and labels off of cardboard boxes, and plastic cartridges.
58:30 - of course it can be made with a circuit board, you could even make it out of Californium, however it's all about the price point. It's expensive to make a thin keyboard with full travel mechanical keys, expensive to make low profile keyboards as well. You can make keyboards very cheaply, but you have to make a few compromises...
Nice video as always Vince. I always get a bit of education and entertainment watching your videos. One thing that I was curious to see was the "spot welds" on the back plate. They kind of looked like solder blobs to me and got me wondering if they could be de-soldered. Might be something to look at when your other two arrive. Although, thinking about it as I type, I'm not sure if the heat would destroy the membrane. :-)
I've just repaired an apple pro keyboard, circa 2001 from a classic mac i have, the keyboard came with the quicksilver models. The story started when i spilt coffee from a flask! on it, it went everywhere. So it needed cleaned anyway, but, boy was it a pain, you can get the main board and the accompanying membrane and metal chassis away from the clear polycab easy, but after taking all the keys off the amount of screws that hold the membrane and chassis together are ridiculous and bloody tiny as well. It took ages to get all the screws out, clean everything then put it all back together, thought i'd done a great job, did it work nope (god dam) then i thought there might be still water in it; i'd not washed the membrane or electrical parts in-case, what happened effected the outcome, just the polycab areas and keys!. needless to say, somehow, water must still have got in somewhere, as it was stone dead. However, a little patients and a day in a very, very! hot conservatory 31 plus degrees and what would you know it works. Just shows what patients gets you. Thanks for an honest and informative video.
About 20 years ago when I was doing my own DIY car PC/MP3 player I had to use old keyboard (because it has the controller chip) and just find shortcut keys from those keyboard membranes. So example if space was play button on winamp you just had to find which two lines connect when you press space and solder a switch to those lines and you had play button.
Hey Vince, don't bother with Apple products in the future, they are notorious for making their things hard or impossible to service, and are getting better and better at it
The layout for buttons is like chessboard matrix. For example if you want the fist button on a row A on the first column 1 - you connect A on first connector and 1 on the second and so on. So for standart classic keyboard you should have 104 keys which is (it could be 8x13 which is exately 104 keys) 10x11 matrix (for 110 keys with 6 unused/reserved) e. g. from A-J for rows and 1-11 for columns. If you want 3 button on the 5 row you connect E with 3. On the flex board they can be layed out differently but the mapping will be the same. So you can make somekind of DIY device from leftovers ;) You can even wire your own unique keyboard from buttons or rubber tacktile switches and wires and even put LED backlight on its USB cable on +5V line :D
would you know that the track is complelty contains silver ? i think first step you should do was check the integrated chips then without losing any time checking keyboard tracks...
correcting my previous comment. any kind of conductive paint does not work. you need to use a single thread from a multitreaded copper wire and just use sticky tape to simply have the thin wires contacting the working carbon circuits and tape.
props to you for exhibiting how apple products are sold as luxury items but are extremely cheap + non-repairable. a machined aluminum keyboard deck does not make a reliable keyboard.
Great Video, Do you have any suggestions to clean the membrane, I see the water was not working for you. I spilled Tea with sugar init. I think It can be fixed.
Thanks for your wonderful insight, for taking the time and reverse engineer through this keyboard! I just somehow magically ruined my A1234 keyboard. I clean the fat residue off the keys using 94% alcohol every other year or so. Now I did so, and all of a sudden the qwerty row of keys and some others stop working, and some are continually pressed. Depressed and let down I went to a large electronics store to find out Apple sells their (full alphanumeric) Magic keyboards now only wireless at a staggering €150, compatible ones starting at €90. I can't remember having ever having to pay those kinds of numbers for a keyboard. So I figured my 13 year old keyboard would be as corroded as the one in the video with connections being blocked (although I can't remember having spilled anything in it but some 94% alcohol here and there), but still decided to flip out some keys (the first ones, as those would be blocking the rest of the row). There were a lot of small hairs and dirt trapped there which I tweezed out, and surely enough, my keyboard works again! So thanks again for your video!
The reason the keyboard didn't work at 25:29 was you can hear it disconnect, it makes the USB/hardware disconnect sound. Once when you connect it, then 2 seconds later the other one saying hardware removed. That then tells you it is something other than the keys and on the main board of the keyboard potentially. At 27:30 the usb ports will work regardless because the main chip, that you identified as warm will be the keyboard, the usb sockets will not be running through there so no need for the firmware etc. for the keyboard itself. They would effectively be a different circuit. Again at 34:00 you plug in and hardware attached sound then hardware removed sound. So twice now, you have had the hardware removed sound thus no input as the keyboard needs to be connected (hardware removed sound is a huge clue), that coupled with the power to the ports, means power is flowing, thus, I would be looking more to the firmware side of things meaning potentially the main chip failing due to the first time (huge clue) where only certain keys were working. Go back and listen again carefully and you will realise, if the keyboard has been detected then dropped, then as soon as it is dropped then it effectively has NOT been connected. If it isn't connected, then no keys will work on any keyboard due to no power. Now, it might not be a main chip issue but definitely the laptop or computer making that disconnected sound means it isn't going to work regardless, even if it were brand new. Unfortunately you missed it by talking over this important sound. Keep device manager open when you do this and then expand the keyboards section and this way you should see it connect and disconnect when trouble shooting. Now with these clues, warm chip, Hardware connect and disconnect sound, some letters working to start then complete failure. I suspect the main chip was failing to be honest and maybe replacing that would have solved it. Certainly the main circuit board is where I would have concentrated and due to other capacitors being ok, again I double down on that one main chip.
The diode is completely normal. It is reading the resistance through the rest of the circuit. If you was to take the diode off it would read .1883 one way and open the other way. If you test across the empty pads where the diode belongs on the board. You would read 1.3571 both ways.
Nice experiment :D I have like 5 of those waiting for some miracle... but I now see they won't have a fix :D By the way, the grounded pin you found on the ribbon connector goes in pair with another one and lights up the caps lock LED :)
I fixed a wireless apple keyboard model A1314. Was able to remove board and was able to clean and DeoxIT clean the corrosion. Apple products are hard to open, designed and built that way on purpose!
Hi Vince! Have you ever tried conductive ink for trace repairs? It couldn't help in this particular case but could prove useful in some future projects. There's a few pens on the market right now that are quite helpful on trace and pad repairs but you can use conductive paint as well to try it out first. Great work! And for a rule I tend to stay away from Apple products when repairs are needed.
Had mine for several years, worked fine until I cleaned it the other night, now it works exactly like yours did. What a POS when you can't even clean them without wrecking them! What's a good replacement?
Hey Vince! Sweet stuff. I'm having trouble with -oddly- just the shift keys on this board. Swapped the KB to another pc and both Shifts won't work. It has been my main KB for quite a handful of years now and it I haven't poured stuff on top of it ever. I wonder if there's a way around this! Enjoyed your whole video, incredibly tough to get to the membranes! Didn't expect it to be that hard. Greetings!
I wouldn’t test the keyboard right after the water fix because even if you dried it with you hairdryer, moistures can stay in there for a lot of days. It would have been wiser to try it out 3-4 days later.
This got so much junk out of my keyboard I will wait for it to dry to see if it worked out for me! I'll just get a new one if it doesn't, but this is still worth a try!
This is the most interesting video that I have seen more in recent years !!!
You are really patient !
I have 5 broken imac keyboards (more than 500$)
It's a scandal to make irreparable accessories like this. Imagine the pollution on a global scale.
Such a bummer that Apple doesn't make their stuff more repairable. These would be a relatively easy fix if they did. Interesting video
TronicsFix this would mean you would not buy a new one. So no profit for Apple.
The aluminum keyboard I got with my 2010 Mac Pro, quit working this past week actually. That's with 15 years of heavy usage. Apple doesn't have to make their products user repairable because they function well past their warranty date. 15 years use out of any computer peripheral is pretty damn impressive. Ive been through 3 $1000 TVs in the time I started using that keyboard. Ill gladly spend another $150 on an apple keyboard.
@@MrSharesky I went through 3 Apple Keyboards in 2 years. All were replaced under warranty, but would not spend my own money on another one. I'll go elsewhere when this one fails.
@@ftrueck they have a massive sustainability department headed up by former director of the US EPA . Right to Repair is something Apple needs to get their head around. Just getting worse by the day.
This isn't just Apple, I had a Microsoft Natural Keyboard 20 years ago that had the same type of Membrane. This is what cost reduction/cheap manufacturing has done. They've reduced the cost of keyboards to the point where they literally are just pieces of plastic paper with the tiniest metal printed on them. Very easy to break/corrode/damage. None of this stuff is designed to be repairable and it's a real shame that Electronics has gotten to this point. Makes a good argument for buying mechanical keyboards.
I did this myself a week ago, pain staking process each individual key and each individual key bracket etc. When I realised the circuit board was basically laminated with membrane I knew then the damage was irreversible so continued to dig deeper as curiousity got the better of me. Great video, nice to know I'm not the only one 🤣
Great demonstration. I had planned to buy and clean up a used keyboard, but now I'll focus on an inexpensive aftermarket solution...you saved me a lot of time and headache!
Thank you Vince for your video. I Just repaired mine, by opening it with hot air gun, and a slunger like you. Then, jiggled the junction between layers you mentioned at @49:38 without removing the welded part.... and voilà ! Back to life !
Thank you so much !!!!!
I knew this was going to be the membrane! It's the same issue in old retro systems too, but the difference in those older systems - you can repair them. Well worth tearing that one down to show us exactly what was wrong with it! Stuff like this puts me off buying Apple!
Interesting and informative exploration - thanks. Would not have thought an hour long video on failing to fix a keyboard would be watchable, but your curiosity and enthusiasm drew me in!
The more you look at stuff like this, the more it becomes apparent that Apple went out of their way to specifically design these devices so they cannot be repaired/serviced. The fact that they're not cheap makes it even worse. Those traces on the keyboard membranes must be so thin that any contact with water would cause it to corrode to the point where the contact would oxidise, entirely losing its conductivity. It's probably not even metal, but some kind of composite that's etched or sprayed onto the plastic sheet during manufacture. Something designed to wear out after only a year or so. Sounds a bit conspiratorial, I know, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if that were the case.
Mind you, the threat of water damage is as old as membrane keyboards themselves, and has been known for decades - IBM started including drain holes something like 30 years ago in an attempt to mitigate the problem (a tradition that continued in Thinkpads up to quite recently, newer ones are supposed to be sealed). Rubber dome keyboards will often have a continuous silicone sheet with the domes that'll provide waterproofing without too much effort. Notebook-style scissor switch mechanisms traditionally don't have that, and so neither does this keyboard.
I wouldn't say they were designed so that they _couldn't_ be repaired - but rather under the assumption that they _wouldn't._ There was literally zero concern. Not a huge difference in end result, mind you. This sort of stuff actually isn't all that rare, if you have a newish car it probably contains several electronic modules that are essentially (expensive) throwaways as well - but to be fair, their weatherproofing also needs to be extremely good.
Now the recent Macbook keyboards that have a habit of breaking if you look at them wrong and basically requite the entire top case assembly to be replaced unless you want to be ripping out lots of glued crap? That's positively nasty.
That's Apple for you, they rip you off with their prices and make it non repairable
@@HuntersMoon78 And threaten to sue unauthorised repair shops who repair their products
99 percent of keyboards are build exactly the same.
@@PileOfEmptyTapes Sad but true :(
Looks great, but if anything breaks you can throw it away. I guess you could build the same keyboard but with a few screws to unscrew and clean.
I admire the persistence. I watched til the end since I was certain you're going to figure out out and put it back together!
The way these keyboards work is that they have a matrix with a keyswitch at every intersection. The microcontroller sends voltage down a column line, and looks to see if it comes out on any of the row lines. If a key is pressed, then it connects a column to a row. The arrangement of the matrix probably doesn't match up with the actual physical arrangement of the keys completely.
Hi,
This is by far the best tear down video of this keyboard. I have the same keyboard which stopped working suddenly. I've tried all the tips that are available on forums and TH-cam , nothing seems to help. So I bought a mechanical keyboard which is great but I miss the low profile format of this keyboard.
Anyway thanks for the great video.
And if there's a way to fix it without taking it apart which is irreversible, please make it your next video.
I love fixing stuff but you convinced me that as much as I love this keyboard when you have a few keys that start failing after a "beverage" spill it isn't worth it. Cheers!
It’s always fun when you start with something partially working and up with completely dead
its a learning process!! I got some great inside a keyboard knowledge from this Video
😅😅😅😅
Good video Vince. The tracks on the membrane under the keys are very thin and can go bad with age or contamination. Sometimes it's obvious because they go a dark color as you saw. I've repaired older keyboards with broken tracks on the membrane by using a "circuit writer" pen, which is just a conductive ink. First I would take apart the keyboard and wash all the plastic parts and membranes in the bath tub and lay them out to dry on towels. My experience is with older keyboards which are much easier to take apart but these apple keyboards are obviously much more difficult...
honestly I feel like my mate vince is a very under rated youtuber because he has very good content and spends a lot of money on things to make videos on.
Blimey! Last time I saw that many layers, I was peeling an onion! Surely with that many layers they could find some way of waterproofing the keyboard. Unlucky on this one, you were always going to be up against it, still a good informative video, hope you don't face the same problems with the other 2! Keep up the good work Vince!
Waterproof! are you kidding, that doesn’t sell replacement keyboards or am I being clinical
i liked your determination to find the fault apple make it so you cannot repair it great video vince
Very interesting video, I got a bunch of these sitting around with faulty wires / boards, you’ve inspired me to try open a few of them up see if I can swap out the boards and get a few back out into working order. I did try before but I nearly stabbed myself tryna open em up. Such a shame they are glued on so strongly compared to the newer ones.
Professional ! Amazing instructions, real time troubleshooting , basically enjoyable to watch ;)
hey thank you for this video - even though you did not suggest we could fix some of these issues i appreciate your thorough examination of the problem. Annoying that apple would allow such a high priced keyboard to be such a dud for so many of us after a ridiculously short period of use. Anyway - thanks for sharing.
When you introduce contaminations to the deionized water it will start to conduct 😉 but it's still better than tap water,
Great detailed video Vince, much appreciated!
You saved me a lot of time !
Subscribed right away ! 🙏
Thanks for the video! My case is a bit odd, because only the number keys stopped working after a casual clean with rubbing alcohol, but the "zero" is working. So 1, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 not working. This way I can't pair the keyboard or enter any passwords which renders my keyboard useless. It's the smaller model with no num pad. Mouse keys is unchecked. I tried everything offered in blogs and discussions, but nothing works. Any ideas?
Anyone else got a bit of a crush on Vince and a little bit disappointed by the bathtub scene? Or is it just me? 🤔 🤣
Wait... were you hoping he'd get in the tub also?
@@dragon940carp6 well, obviously! 🤣
@@dragon940carp6 and of course I'm only joking, but "Our Vince" is a bit of a hottie in a "cute guy next-door" kind of way...and seems like a really nice bloke too. No offense intended 😄 But yeah...I would 🤣
@@njm1971nyc I was only joking too. A whole video while in the tub would be interesting.
@@dragon940carp6 😜🤣
5:48 I'm very disappointed that there is no rubber ducky.
I think the aluminum is just there to make it feel higher quality than it actually is. Because without it, the keyboard would feel like typing on a Happy Meal toy.
The video I was looking for, since a lot of years... Thank you very much
Thank you for the video... after seeing the dirts from the keyboard in the water, i decided to lift the faulty keys with my finger and blow them hard with my mouth, and boom it worked like magic. Thank you.
Very enjoyable forensic deconstruction of an Apple Mac USB external keyboard. I was drawn in becuase I have this exact model USB keyboard and it's shwowing many similar issues. Whereas I was hoping to see a fixed keyboard at the end, it was really quite useful to see all of the problems these can have. The further positive comments down below indicate that your hard work was worth all of the effort.
X & Y interrogation lines scan for a key down. These are driven by two binary counters that are converted to decimal interrogation lines. {Rows & columns are X & Y}. The scan speed has to be fast enough to catch a typing speed of around 5 chars pers sec or a bit more. At the instant that a key down is detected the value of the binary counters is frozen and transmitted to a look-up table that interprets which key it is. This will be passed to the display section but don't worry about that. Its quite mind-blowing enough. Excellent video and well done for persisting. You have done well. I have done these and re-welded them back with some JB Weld. For some machines the complete membrane is available. {HP for certain}. :
I recently tried to fix Mac pro a2338 keyboard Butter spilled with 99% iso propyl alcohol black substance under two layers appeared after watching your video now I know keyboard must be replaced without wasting time
Very helpful video
Thanks lot
Have the same keyboard, had issues with keys not working (i spilt red bull on it) so put through dish washer (warm wash no soap) and when it was finished i put on radiator for a day and when i tried again it worked fine...
also had one in office that had same issue as yours, only a few keys working, took home and also put through dish washer, same results, working fine now...
you should think about a dremel tool, then you can grind away those joints. very useful tool. another comment said you could use conductive paint/marker and the like to restore those connections👍 great vid any how
Thanks for spotting out the root cause. I have a magic keyboard + a macbook air which few keys do not work. Intended to repair but after watching this I decided not to waste the time!
Hi, I have a question 🙋♂️.
I’m currently building a 17 inch mac book pro with the internals of a M1 Mac Mini and I was originally planning on removing/ cutting into the case in order to fit in another high end keyboard however, I’ve also come across the teensy board which would allow me to rewire de signals from the ribbon to usb… unfortunately that all seems too tedious and I’m afraid the keys won’t really match in the end. Since this keyboard is mechanically similar to early mac book pros’ do you reckon the chips on this external keyboard could be used as the encoder for the inbuilt macbook pro keyboard?
Vince you’ve learnt a few things which is worth it
Welds are just solder
Don’t clean using anything but IPA
Heat up before dissembling
I think you’ll have more success with next one
i'm amazed. i watched the entire video. such a good explanation mate.
I love watching stuff like this. Great stuff
You say that it´s well made, I don´t think so.
They made a keyboard that can´t be opened without destroying it and it´s not water proof.
So it means if you have the bad luck to spill some liquid in your keyboard. It´s gone...... it´s just a matter of time....
Yeah, it's well made... To not give Apple any money as it is only fit for the trashcan. LOL! 😜
This is a problem with thin membrane keyboards in general. I killed my Logitech K800 with literally 2 or 3 mL of filtered tap water landing on the arrow keys.
I agree. I have many Thinkpads and all of them still work. I can replace most of the parts, especially the most failure points, battery, keyboard, ssd. Currently use a Lenovo L380 and stuck 32 gigs of ram in it, everything in it is replaceable by the user.
Only idiots buy apple
@ is your iq higher than 20 ?
The fact they can't be repaired is such a pain! I have one that works but it's in rough shape (crushed edges and missing keys) and a broken one in mint condition and I was planning to put the working electronics in the working one. Guess not after seeing this. I'll just swap the missing caps over and leave the crushed aluminium edges as they are.
On my USB Apple keyboard I just bought (used) the keys 6 z h n are not working - one whole string. Would I have to open it too? I think that's too much work and b) I can't fix it then either (those metal channels)
That's one way of get out of doing the dishes. Watching this is the next best way.
Thanks for this. I was heating my keyboard to try to pry it open, and I put this video on at the same time. I realized I could just stop and throw it in the bin Instead of wasting more time dismantling it. No way I could repair this. Also, mine was broken because I got a few droplets of beer on it, because I suddenly had to cough while I had a sip of beer in my mouth. ( looked funny though ). So they are very fragile when it comes to moisture. Mine stopped working over night, I guess because of the corrosion process it had a delay. I will buy a cheap new one or second hand one instead. My mac works with other brands of keyboards, so there is no problems in buying logitech or other cheap stuff.
@24:38 I thought that was going to work...
I look at time remaining, and see 30 more minutes.... nope.. saw that coming...LOL
Love your videos man, I am ordering up a soldering station cause I started watching your videos, I love tinkering and taking things apart as well, just to see how it works. Used to do it when I was young, turning 50 and I need a new hobby anyways.
if you get something wet you need to let it dry for a few days if you can't get it apart to do it. water don't kill stuff. electric added to wet stuff does.what made you think spot welds? i never seen them ever in electronics. i would have thought they were solder and desolder them.
Hi Vince, I was very interested in this video as I have a broken keyboard of the same type. I'm thinking that it may not be rust from water that you have seen, as the backplate is not made of ferrous metal, It's more likely to be coffee, the weak acids from which would etch the traces over time. All pretty academic as it couldn't be fixed. I do wonder if bathing in IPA may have been a better move, as it is more likely to clean than cause shorts. I may have a go and if successful, will let you know. Keep up the great work!
The number keypad switches between the number input and the function input on those keys. Toggle the NumLock button to switch between the modes. The mode that was being used was function (arrow) keys at the initial test at 3:42
Very thorough methodology, I commend your approach! Learnt a lot from this video, thanks for the up :-)
Great video, loved the entire testing process!
gotta love apple so "elegant" and "simplistic" it only works if everything is 100% perfect. Still always interesting to see you fault finding and trying to fix stuff no matter how insane the company who initially made the product is.
Fascinating!! And frustrating. I have two of these not working correctly.
Mine also have few keys not working 4 keys from 1 horizontal line, what should i do now? I think i have exact the same problem as you....
I am an Apple fan, but I do really wish that they made their hardware more repairable. That said, even if it was possible to open one of these easily, they would still almost never get repaired, so I think Apple just decided that they might as well make it sealed. At least the keys and scissor mechanisms are replaceable, which hasn't been the case with the most recent MacBook Pros until the just-released 16" model.
This was an interesting video. I have a couple of these keyboards (and never had any issues with them for what it's worth) but I never knew what they looked like inside.
wonder when people start realizing that apple products are build to a cheap price and sold to a price where only fans can afford to buy em. Apple gives a shit about serviceability.
Designed in California, clued in China. These are terrible keyboards, I have 3 of them and all the same issues (hower all different keys). There is theory that these keyboards are pressed (to tighten the glue - too tight) at the factory and this maybe already damage a small piece of the horrible fragile membrane or damage it over time by the crazy amount of pressure inside the glued materials. This is not designed for repair, a real shame. You can take out the PCB and mount it under a desk to provide 2 usb ports.
Much appreciated you took the time to do that pal I learned something and thankyou!! Also, looks hardware but I hear theres a firmware issue with them sometimes also
When I wash a circuit board with water or alcohol, it has to be quickly dried off and then left for a few days to allow moisture under the chips to evaporate.
@Smattless when soldering I clean with 70% alcohol. It still will linger under IC's, so I leave it for a day or so before powering up. On motors I will use water and compressed air, then run them until warm to dry out.
@Smattless the 70% alcohol is 30% water, and if not fully evaporated will conduct electricity and cause a short.
@Smattless I have 97% for certain things. On some plastic items it will cause a white film.
kudos for persistence. that was really helpful for a guy without tools and on a remote desert island. right now my shift button has fallen into the abyss. but i'm not 'going in', no sir.
i have same product only left arrow key is not working i dont want to crack it open i hope i am able to fix it
Im glad I found this tutorial.
So this is my issue, yesterday I decided to wipe down my keyboard (the same one in this tutorial). All I did was I used a damp hand towel, and went across the keyboard to remove some smudge and dirt off of the keys.. The keyboard was connected to my mac.
After I noticed that the green led light indicator for the caps lock was not lighting up anymore. So I went online to see what could be the issue (I have El Capitan by the way). So I tried holding down the caps lock key for a second, tapping it 5 times, tapping the alt/option key 5 times, so on and so forth.
Now when I hit the caps lock key it still doesn't light up but now the d key wont work, unless I click on the caps lock again.
but also other keys will not work when the caps lock key is initiated.
Do you have any idea what could be the issue?
I have tried to do a pram reset and nothing. Your help will be very much appreciated.
Thank you
Also if the caps lock is initiated certain keys like the o, or p would actually eject the cd carrier.
Like 6 years ago I washed it, keys removed, under tap water. The only thing I damaged was the usb power with a very inconsistent connection. But apart that, it's working fine, for 12 years now. I know it's value, and I salvaged some others all those years, but latter versions are so sensible now, they definitely don't like liquid whatsoever. I can't get over it. I don't have mac anymore, but all my PC has an wired apple alu keyboard.
Wow. That was a lot of work to not be able to fix it mate. Well done for finding the fault anyways!
As usual Vince, a very interesting video.Thank you.
Very interesting Vince, enjoyed that. Glad to see you have a Dyson Hairdryer lol. Bought the other half one for Christmas, near broke the bank lol. Keep up the good work. Mick 👍🍻
That keyboard is never going to type again.
A good thing about this keyboard being broken and you experimenting whit it, is that you have a greater chance a getting the other keyboards working when you get them :)
Can you wash with rubbing alcohol?
You can soften and/or remove the adhesive with Naphtha - sold as Zippo Lighter Fluid, Ronsonol Lighter Fluid, or VM&P (varnish makers and paint) grade naphtha (quart size) from a paint store.
Squirt and wipe off. Gloves recommended. Similar but stronger than IPA.
I use it to clean sticky goo and labels off of cardboard boxes, and plastic cartridges.
58:30 - of course it can be made with a circuit board, you could even make it out of Californium, however it's all about the price point. It's expensive to make a thin keyboard with full travel mechanical keys, expensive to make low profile keyboards as well. You can make keyboards very cheaply, but you have to make a few compromises...
Nice video as always Vince. I always get a bit of education and entertainment watching your videos. One thing that I was curious to see was the "spot welds" on the back plate. They kind of looked like solder blobs to me and got me wondering if they could be de-soldered. Might be something to look at when your other two arrive. Although, thinking about it as I type, I'm not sure if the heat would destroy the membrane. :-)
I've just repaired an apple pro keyboard, circa 2001 from a classic mac i have, the keyboard came with the quicksilver models. The story started when i spilt coffee from a flask! on it, it went everywhere. So it needed cleaned anyway, but, boy was it a pain, you can get the main board and the accompanying membrane and metal chassis away from the clear polycab easy, but after taking all the keys off the amount of screws that hold the membrane and chassis together are ridiculous and bloody tiny as well. It took ages to get all the screws out, clean everything then put it all back together, thought i'd done a great job, did it work nope (god dam) then i thought there might be still water in it; i'd not washed the membrane or electrical parts in-case, what happened effected the outcome, just the polycab areas and keys!. needless to say, somehow, water must still have got in somewhere, as it was stone dead. However, a little patients and a day in a very, very! hot conservatory 31 plus degrees and what would you know it works. Just shows what patients gets you. Thanks for an honest and informative video.
About 20 years ago when I was doing my own DIY car PC/MP3 player I had to use old keyboard (because it has the controller chip) and just find shortcut keys from those keyboard membranes. So example if space was play button on winamp you just had to find which two lines connect when you press space and solder a switch to those lines and you had play button.
this video was exactly what I was looking for! Great job! Too bad the keyboard is basically unrepeatable.
Hey Vince, don't bother with Apple products in the future, they are notorious for making their things hard or impossible to service, and are getting better and better at it
Brilliant video Vince. 👍
The layout for buttons is like chessboard matrix. For example if you want the fist button on a row A on the first column 1 - you connect A on first connector and 1 on the second and so on. So for standart classic keyboard you should have 104 keys which is (it could be 8x13 which is exately 104 keys) 10x11 matrix (for 110 keys with 6 unused/reserved) e. g. from A-J for rows and 1-11 for columns. If you want 3 button on the 5 row you connect E with 3. On the flex board they can be layed out differently but the mapping will be the same. So you can make somekind of DIY device from leftovers ;) You can even wire your own unique keyboard from buttons or rubber tacktile switches and wires and even put LED backlight on its USB cable on +5V line :D
would you know that the track is complelty contains silver ? i think first step you should do was check the integrated chips then without losing any time checking keyboard tracks...
very nice video. I think those traces are repairable with silver conductive paint.
correcting my previous comment. any kind of conductive paint does not work. you need to use a single thread from a multitreaded copper wire and just use sticky tape to simply have the thin wires contacting the working carbon circuits and tape.
When you plug-in the apple keyboard, don't you hear the device (drivers) mounting and dismounting within 2 seconds?
No, that's a windows thing.
Ricky Ostrom yeah
On windows
@@PaulJamesMuldoonGYST it;s a sign of a (low) power issue. Short or overload.
props to you for exhibiting how apple products are sold as luxury items but are extremely cheap + non-repairable. a machined aluminum keyboard deck does not make a reliable keyboard.
So, how did it go? With the rest two boards?
I enjoyed the video the silver lines that go to the buttons I was told is platinum some keyboards are platinum some are gold
When i see an Apple product, it comes into my mind that it is "not serviceapple"
Grrrr so frustrating!
Underrated comment xD
Q) pls - what micro notebook did you have on video ? 🙂
Hi. That small laptop you are using to check keyboard at bathroom - what is it? What's the model?
A bit late to the party. It's the GPD Pocket. It has since been replaced by the GPD pocket 3.
Great Video, Do you have any suggestions to clean the membrane, I see the water was not working for you. I spilled Tea with sugar init. I think It can be fixed.
The actual keyboard is a matrix with columns and rows. So to simulate a keystroke you'll have to connect one row with one column.
Thanks for your wonderful insight, for taking the time and reverse engineer through this keyboard! I just somehow magically ruined my A1234 keyboard. I clean the fat residue off the keys using 94% alcohol every other year or so. Now I did so, and all of a sudden the qwerty row of keys and some others stop working, and some are continually pressed.
Depressed and let down I went to a large electronics store to find out Apple sells their (full alphanumeric) Magic keyboards now only wireless at a staggering €150, compatible ones starting at €90. I can't remember having ever having to pay those kinds of numbers for a keyboard. So I figured my 13 year old keyboard would be as corroded as the one in the video with connections being blocked (although I can't remember having spilled anything in it but some 94% alcohol here and there), but still decided to flip out some keys (the first ones, as those would be blocking the rest of the row). There were a lot of small hairs and dirt trapped there which I tweezed out, and surely enough, my keyboard works again! So thanks again for your video!
The reason the keyboard didn't work at 25:29 was you can hear it disconnect, it makes the USB/hardware disconnect sound. Once when you connect it, then 2 seconds later the other one saying hardware removed. That then tells you it is something other than the keys and on the main board of the keyboard potentially. At 27:30 the usb ports will work regardless because the main chip, that you identified as warm will be the keyboard, the usb sockets will not be running through there so no need for the firmware etc. for the keyboard itself. They would effectively be a different circuit. Again at 34:00 you plug in and hardware attached sound then hardware removed sound.
So twice now, you have had the hardware removed sound thus no input as the keyboard needs to be connected (hardware removed sound is a huge clue), that coupled with the power to the ports, means power is flowing, thus, I would be looking more to the firmware side of things meaning potentially the main chip failing due to the first time (huge clue) where only certain keys were working. Go back and listen again carefully and you will realise, if the keyboard has been detected then dropped, then as soon as it is dropped then it effectively has NOT been connected. If it isn't connected, then no keys will work on any keyboard due to no power.
Now, it might not be a main chip issue but definitely the laptop or computer making that disconnected sound means it isn't going to work regardless, even if it were brand new. Unfortunately you missed it by talking over this important sound. Keep device manager open when you do this and then expand the keyboards section and this way you should see it connect and disconnect when trouble shooting.
Now with these clues, warm chip, Hardware connect and disconnect sound, some letters working to start then complete failure. I suspect the main chip was failing to be honest and maybe replacing that would have solved it. Certainly the main circuit board is where I would have concentrated and due to other capacitors being ok, again I double down on that one main chip.
The diode is completely normal. It is reading the resistance through the rest of the circuit. If you was to take the diode off it would read .1883 one way and open the other way. If you test across the empty pads where the diode belongs on the board. You would read 1.3571 both ways.
Nice experiment :D I have like 5 of those waiting for some miracle... but I now see they won't have a fix :D By the way, the grounded pin you found on the ribbon connector goes in pair with another one and lights up the caps lock LED :)
I fixed a wireless apple keyboard model A1314. Was able to remove board and was able to clean and DeoxIT clean the corrosion. Apple products are hard to open, designed and built that way on purpose!
Hi Vince! Have you ever tried conductive ink for trace repairs? It couldn't help in this particular case but could prove useful in some future projects. There's a few pens on the market right now that are quite helpful on trace and pad repairs but you can use conductive paint as well to try it out first.
Great work! And for a rule I tend to stay away from Apple products when repairs are needed.
There's a conductive glue on the market for defroster repair, almost in any car parts shop, it's glue with copper dust.
Somewhere around 6:35 - 6:54, and the metal part of the USB connector is a ground too
Had mine for several years, worked fine until I cleaned it the other night, now it works exactly like yours did. What a POS when you can't even clean them without wrecking them! What's a good replacement?
help pls" I plugged my kb in laptop, it said : unknown device (I checked in device management)
Hey Vince! Sweet stuff. I'm having trouble with -oddly- just the shift keys on this board. Swapped the KB to another pc and both Shifts won't work. It has been my main KB for quite a handful of years now and it I haven't poured stuff on top of it ever. I wonder if there's a way around this! Enjoyed your whole video, incredibly tough to get to the membranes! Didn't expect it to be that hard.
Greetings!
I may be wrong but those “welds” look alot like solder blobs. Have you tried putting your soldering iron on one of them to see if it melts?
you've got more patience than I have!
Vince, did your other Apple keyboards work? Will we see an update video 🙂
I wouldn’t test the keyboard right after the water fix because even if you dried it with you hairdryer, moistures can stay in there for a lot of days. It would have been wiser to try it out 3-4 days later.
This got so much junk out of my keyboard I will wait for it to dry to see if it worked out for me! I'll just get a new one if it doesn't, but this is still worth a try!