I've been a real fan of this particular model of Dell keyboard for years. I have three or four of them, garnered over the years as cast-offs at various places I've worked. The last I bought myself; the Bluetooth version of the same board; last November.
As you might expect, most of a decade of work leaves these things pretty grungy. I started looking for ways to clean them. A crazy idea struck me... are they dishwasher-safe? I mean, if there's not actually a current running through them, seems like they ought to be. Opinions on the net went both ways, but one person sounded like they'd given it a go and come through the looking glass. The advice was to use the rinse setting, and nothing but water. No soap or anything that would leave a film on the electronics. Don't wash it with anything else. Drain it afterward, and let it dry for a week. Have a spare. Well, I have several, so I thought... why not?
I did this last Thursday. Couldn't really wait a week. It's winter, dry to the point of electrocution if you touch bare metal, so I gambled Tuesday would be enough, and plugged it in. It worked. It's not 100% factory clean, but the stuff that's collected under the keys is gone and all I can really see is just some residue on the sides of the keys. A second wash might handle much of that, and if the keyboard came through twice, well, I'd be able to recommend this for regular USB-powered keyboards. If you can spare it, I say, give it a try.
2 comments:
I've done that, washing out my keyboard. They're resilient. They can take it.
Now I just buy new ones. They're cheap enough these days, and I have Amazon Prime.
I kind of get attached to things. You know, like, "Hey, I was using this keyboard back when..." kind of stuff. It's not that I can't bear to throw out a keyboard... but if I can wash it and keep that tie to the past, hey. :)
I did get the BT Dell keyboard via Amazon Prime, BTW. :D
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