Water on Model 01

Help and Getting Started
1

Spilled some water yesterday on my Model 01.

Saw that too late. I left it drying for some hours.

Yesterday — after ~ 3 hours — the return key was working again, but y, u, i not.

Should I give it more time (it has been less than 24h), should I try to repair (how), can I order a new board, or should I order the model 100 (but I probably cannot wait until January 2022, I think my RSI is going to hit me hard before that time).

Edit: All the leds are working now, but they aforementioned keys are not.

2

So, after 48h the “dead” keys are still dead. Is there anything fixable at this point?

I cannot think I can wait until Jan 2022, for the new one to come out :frowning:

3

I’d unscrew the circuit board and leave it out to dry for a couple more days. But if o is working and i is not, the repair *should be straight-forward It’d just be the connection between the row pin of i and o.

1 Like
4

Hi @jesse

It’s now open up like this, is this enough?

image
image3024×4032 2.42 MB

5

Yup! That oughta do it.

6

Hi @jesse,

Still no sign of life for the y , u , i and return.

The rest (numbers and leds) is working.

How should I perform the “repair” you mentioned?

7

It sounds like the broken electrical connection is between the two bits circled in red. Someone competent with a soldering iron might try just connecting those two pins.

image
image2784×1774 1.06 MB

1 Like
8

That’s really helpful, thank you! Is there a video on how I remove the keycaps to access what’s down there?

9

Oh, I’d recommend doing this from the back side of the circuit board. Just unscrew the circuit board from the plastic.

10

I had to drive the keyboard down to Italy during my holidays (1300km one-way), but the soldering iron FIXED IT!

Thanks so much for the patience — and the beautiful product!!

1 Like
11

How did the water damage the connection between those 2 pins to begin with? That he even had to use a soldering iron? I don’t get it, but I want to understand.

12

Well, how the connection was damaged with water, I don’t know. I know it was working well before spilling water on it (I mean, typing all day on the thing). By checking with the tester, we could see the connection was broken between the two letters.

We connected then the pins indicated by @jesse (picture above) from the back of the board, and voilà, everything works again. I’ve tested it for 5’ by clicking the keys, and the tester of course confirmed that electricity was flowing between all the keys involved.

1 Like
13

@jesse I think I have the same issue but now with the N and butterfly keys not registering (while m works).

This actually happened because I try to clean the N with isopropanol alcohol, and it stopped working (and took the butterfly key with it). Would the solution be to connect the M and the N from the board?

14

How long have you left it to dry? That could be a short circuit due to unevaporated alcohol/water.

15

Well, at least 8 hours.

I can wait more, should I try 24h?

16

@jesse In the meantime, another question since I have your attention.

I never use pg up and down. Would it be OK to just replace the switches from those keys with N (and eventually butterfly if it also doesn’t come up)?

17

@jesse I appreciate that SVB collapse might be causing you some headaches, so it’s totally OK if you can’t answer.

Waiting didn’t fix the keyboard though :frowning:

Should I connect the M with the N from behind the board to “resurrect” it?

18

It’s certainly worth testing that. But yeah…Very other-focused this week.