Osborne O1 Keyboard issues

[David Williams]

On 23/08/2015 09:28, drlegendre . wrote:
> Howdy gents,
>
> Working away on the recently acquired Osborne 1. Seems there's something
> wrong with the KB - and if I didn't know better, I'd say it's a case of
> shorted contacts.
>
> The KB connector is 24 pins, double row header like a short floppy or IDE
> header.
>
> On the KB side, there are two "shorted" groups of pins. Group one is 2X
> shortred pins, group two is 5X shorted pins.
>
> Thing is, this KB is not really built to be serviced, best as I can tell.
> The switch matrix is made of two layered flexible circuits, and the key
> assys are 'riveted' in place, by melting over the plastic pins. So I see no
> way to disassemble it and give it a clean.. and then, even so.
>
> With such limited access, I don't see many avenues other than flushing with
> solvent(s) and hoping for the best.
>
> What's to be done? Is this one.. done already?
I had a similar issue on a Osborne a couple of weeks ago. I ended up 
using a sharp knife to cut the melted pins on the rear of the keyboard 
to remove the switches. Lifted the membrane and cleaned it before 
refitting. To re-attach the switches, I used some super glue on the back 
were each pin is and used a hot glue gun on the front in between each 
switch.

Whole process took about an hour but has been working fine since. I 
think this is caused by the cable constantly pressing down on the keys 
when the keyboard is clipped to the front of the machine.

On an Osborne I repaired last year, just removing the the keyboard 
assembly and giving a bit of a flex was enought to release the stuck key.

Cheers,
Dave