Tips for getting latte or soda out of your keyboard

cleaningergonomicskeyboard

For the first time in my entire life yesterday, I accidentally spilled some latte in my ergonomic keyboard.

The keys are starting to stick a bit now, and I was just wondering if there was some way to get those keys unstuck short of buying a new keyboard.

Update

Last week I accidentally choked on some ironically named "Berry Blast Naked Juice" and spewed it all over my Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 keyboard at work. This time I had to clean the entire keyboard.

Ah, after watching a video from Russia on YouTube on how to clean the keyboard I tried nearly the same thing on my keyboard. I just took the keys off, and washed them in the sink.

The keyboard still works, but I had to wait an entire week for the thing to dry out enough for use. Although the keys looked dry to me when I initially reinstalled them in the keyboard, my belief is that there was still some water drops lodged in the dark/hollow cylinders that extend up into the key. These water droplets are probably what caused all of the extra j's I would get when pressing the backspace key when I first tried it out a week ago. After a week of letting it dry out, it seems to work again.

A small note about reinstalling the spacebar
Also one more tip I would like to add, if you are re-installing the spacebar make sure that the connected side of the wire is attached to the actual spacebar key (it snaps right into place); Also, the disconnected part of the grey wire that lies bellow the space bar should fit between the two planks that jettison away from the back and forward keys/caplocks indicator lights.

  Connect this end to the  Spacebar Key
  ------------------------------------
 |                                    |  <- grey wire from bellow the spacebar.
 |                                    |
  ---                              ---
  | |             |                | | <- planks
                 \ /
            caplocks lights

Best Answer

Somewhat controversially, Throw it in a dishwasher!

Pro + Howto: Scott Mochella

Against: NPR

Anecdotally: Worked great for me, but make sure you let it sit for a day or two to let it dry completely. Water doesn't hurt electronics, water hurts electronics that have power to them.

Otherwise, yes, pop the keys off and wash/clean those. It's a long process, but it does tend to work well.

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