How To Fix A Broken Membrane-Keyboard (Logitech G15 Gen1)

[Cillit_Bang]

Did you ever unintentionally poured your drink over a keyboard and some keys aren't working anymore?

Then here is the solution to your problems (i will demonstrate it on a Logitech G15 Gen1 i got really cheap on ebay because it had some dead keys)

Here are some things you will need:

- conductive silver lacquer

- a cheap multi-meter

- a small phillipshead screwdriver

- a small knife or something similar

- a toothstick (to get the conducting silver onto the foil)

- hole pliers

- a keyboard thats not working correctly

 

continuing in the next post due to the image-limit per post

[Cillit_Bang]

First of all write down all the keys that aren't working!

The best thing to do before you take apart anything is to ensure that your working-gear is functional

If its working you shall continue by removing all the screws on the bottom of the keyboard.

to make life easier I suggest to make a pattern so you can tell which screw was were
(its a nice habit to have when you repair notebooks)

After you removed all the screws you can use the knife to remove the outer shell (because of plastic clips)


But be careful since the display on the G15 is connected with a short flat-flex cable

you can lift the retention-clip with your knife on both sides of the flat-flex-cable

After you disconnected the cable and removed the outer shell the keyboard should look something like that
(depending on the model (like the g15 refresh) the inner stuff may be a bit different)

Now its time to remove the screws that are secureing the main-part and the connectors.
(on the G15 refresh you can't do this becuase its layouted different)

After you lifted that up it should look like that:
(to lift it you may have to use the knife again because of plasic clips)

you can lay the part from the picture above away for now because we are interested in this:
(where you have to undo some screws again)

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[Cillit_Bang]

Now you should see the backlight diffuser
(we dont need that atm)

Another part you should see is the multi-layer-foil:

In case of the G15 Gen1 the layers are connected on just two points
you have to use the hole pliers to cut around the connection-points by pressing down and rotating the tool

After you carefully peeled the three layers apart it should look like this:
1) middle layer without traces (to seperate the upper and the lower layer)
2) upper layer with traces
3) lower layer with traces

If you didn't wrote down all the not working keys:

well you can check manually but you will have a hard time finding the faulty trace.
here an example:
This does look somewhat different from the rest right?

so lets check it with the multimeter set to resistance-measurement:

(as we see nope its not the error)


Thats why its important to write down all keys that are not working

(as we can see all keys are connected by the same trace - so we know now where to check for stuff that looks different and probe there)

And sure enough there it is:

Now its time to get the conductive silver lacquer and the toothstick out
(make sure to shake the ampoule to distribute the silver powder in the solution before you use it
and to make your job easier you can use the knife (or some sandpaper) to roughen the toothstick)

you may need more than one layer to get a good contact

continuing in the next post due to the image-limit per post

[Cillit_Bang]

And make sure that you let it dry
(because before its not dried completely it won't conduct electricity)

 

If you have to repair a trace that is surrounded by other traces dont worry if you accidently connect them.

All you have to do once the conducting silver dried is to scrape away the unwanted silver with a sharp object.

 

Also make sure that the conducting silver is not touching the grounding-trace on the back of the foil

(e.g. if you are working on the edge of the foil - it can lead to crosstalk between some keys)

 

 

Now its the time to assemble the part with the backlight diffuser. Connect the connectors and test if your work has payed off
(you don't want to assemble everything just to notice that there was another trace with problems)

(the backlight might flicker because the G15 notices that the display is not connected and tries to initialize it)

If everything works fine you can now put back the screws and get the outer shell ready.

In order to connect the very shot flat-flex-cable of the display you have to open it all the way to get as much cable as possible (since it rolls up when you close the display)
In my experience its the best to try and connect the cable from the front

(and yep its kinda difficult and Logitech solved that issue with the G15 Refresh)

After you put back the screws holding the outer shell in place and tested the keyboard again and it works:


Congratulations to your working keyboard



oh and btw while you are working on the keyboard you might wanna clean it...

[bri bri]

Damn, I spilt a whole cup of water onto my old G11. I wish I still had it around to try this tutorial out.

[Erakki]

Big thanks for this. Perfect step-by-step instructíons which even i was able to follow.

 

I managed to pour some juice to my keyboard and after cleaning it away i noticed that right side of keyboard was not working anymore. With your instructions I was able to find problem and to fix it even as it took some time as nine "lines" was more or less broken from several places.

 

One more time - big thanks.

 

p.s. picture of damage caused by juice (or cleaning of it)

 

 

[WorldDominator]

You can always just buy a mech keyboard once your membrane-keyboard breaks :D

[zivs]

Damn, I wish the pictures would work ... Anyway, at least now I have a clue what to do with my old G15 keyboards. Been holding it in closet for nearly three years. Time to revive it! (Sorry for bringing up so old topic - been googling for such help for hours now) 

[Tech_Dreamer]

@Cillit_Bang good thread, kudos..

[PhotonStorm]

A great thread, I just returned to get work on my G15 underway and the pix have gone    and chance they could be reinstated?

Thanks for the info, I am sure I can get it done though

 

[hak4fun]

Another that works is a piece of scotchtape, and some tin foil. Cut a very thin strip, Stick it to the back of a piece of scotchtape. Line it up so it connects the 2 broken points, and stick it down. I actually just used this method on the keyboard I am using riight now

[tajvanc]

This post is epic. I registered just to say a BIG thanks to Cillit_Bang

[casablanca]

I wonder if I can break the keyboard into parts and just use the screen panel with media buttons separately. I have my logitech g15 gen1 for almost 10 years now. And I am really sick of this key feel and it's taking so much freaking space. I want to get a mechanical keyboard with either 105 keys or 87 keys, but I just can't give up this little lcd which gives me useful information during game sessions like time, who's talking on mumble, volume, the currently playing song etc. So I figured out maybe there are some little screens for that purpose only. There were but support was lacking and I don't want to program every little thing I need So I wonder if I can disassemble my g15, cut the membrane keyboard parts, leds and just use the screen part. I can create a much prettier box that I can use it with later on.

 

In 13th photo, it seems like most parts are added with flex cables and connectors, so I assume that I can do this pretty easily. But I need to be sure, otherwise I am just wasting a working keyboard

[AdeelJeff]

You freggin legend, only one prob, mine was accidentally ripped during cleaning but I don't conductive silver (forgot the name already) is there anything else I can use? 

[Mr.Br1an.1204]

mythriftfindg15gen1sspacebardosentwork.plssendhelp

[Guest]

This would’ve been useful before I snapped my keyboard in half for not working and bought a new one. Oh well... now I have a mechanical one.