Tygre's
Amiga
Wiki

Disassembling, Cleaning, and Fixing the Keyboard

My NeXTStation ADB keyboard came "as is", which means that four keys weren't working, and it was pretty dirty

. The "broken" keys were 8 in the top row, d and j in the middle row, and 0 in the num pad. Below, I show how to disassemble, clean, and fix this keyboard! The NeXTStation ADB keyboard uses Alps SKCM black key switches (cf. DeskAuthority or BergDB). I found a blueprint for these switches on eBay and a video on YouTube by Chyrosran22 that explains how to disassemble and clean one of them.

It's very easy to disassemble this keyboard with some attention. The keycaps had never been removed before, so they require some (vertical!) strength to remove. For the keycaps with metal supports, I first detach them from the keyboard plate by running a toothpick underneath them gently, starting from the middle, going toward the plastic "teeth".

For the "broken" keys, they all worked fine again after cleaning, except for "J". For "J", I opened the Alps SKCM black switch by prying toothpicks on each side of its "wings" and then pushing them down almost vertically. Then, I could slowly lift the upper housing of the switch. Finally, I added a tiny piece of painter's tape on the leaf spring to push on the contact sub-assembly a little bit more and, voilà !

Taking Care of the Keyboard

Photo

Comment

The keyboard, before cleaning, doesn't look bad, but wait to see inside

The back of the keyboard and its serial number, ABP1717723.

The keyboard without its top cover. There's a rubber gasket between the top and bottom covers.

Zoom in on the connectors: the cable to the monitor and the connector for the mouse.

The flat cable for the mouse connector is actually pretty long and folded under the keyboard plate. The bottom cover is very dirty, and the water turned brown during cleaning... This keyboard drank coffee at one point

The back of the keyboard is clean.

The top of the keyboard plate, without the keycaps, is very dirty... There's a long scratch along the right side of the Return key.

Zoom in on the cable connector, showing the little red dot.

Some of the "long" keys have metal supports: two black ones for the Shift keys, a shorter one for the Control key, and the remaining have the same size for the Enter, Return, and (numpad) Zero keys.