Resurrected Corsair k70 Vengeance mechanical keyboard

[T_Swizzle]

Let me just start off by saying that I unfortunately did not take any pictures of the horrible mess that was covering the aluminum front plate of my keyboard or the mess that was covering the internal pcb, I wasn't sure if my attempts would prove fruitful so I neglected to document it at all. Given the chance to do it again I would have made some type of video going over the process. 

 

In the past few months a good friend of mine and myself have been experimenting with making our own alcohol, completely legal where I am from as long as you don't use any type of distillation process. While adding some sugar to one particular blend I had been making I forgot that when you mix sugar into a solution that has active yeast in it there will be a sudden expansion of gasses and it will bubble in whatever contain you have it in. Unfortunately for me these bubbles overflowed though the mouth of my funnel, which had about 60 grams of sugar in it. and coated my keyboard in it quickly shorting out everything it came into contact with. I did what any other person would do, borrowed a friend of mines keyboard while my new one was being shipped and happily went about my day. It was about a week before i got the idea to try and save my old keyboard. I purchased it from a friend of mine in school shorty after it was released for 50 bucks, he thought he was getting one of the rgb versions instead of static red, and it was my first mechanical keyboard. Watching Lukes video about fixing his old keyboard gave me the push i needed to try and fix it, after all what could go wrong? So I blindly began to take out all of the screws i could to get the frame separated, I was nearly ready to admit defeat when I couldn't locate the last two screws, this was my first time taking apart a keyboard and I was too stubborn to look up a guide before I began, so with the internet as my weapon I searched for the answer. Now I understand having to work around certain engineering aspects of how something is put together, I worked at a factory that had twenty to thirty year old machines still running and would often have to find screws and fasteners put in the most ridiculous places, but why would you put a screw under your logo on a product that would have to be removed for any type of maintenance or thorough cleaning by the user? The second screw (located under the right metal cover of the volume scroll wheel) makes perfect sense to me as that can be removed easily and without damaging the rather thin piece of metal. With the last of the screws out of the way the rest of it was actually pretty simple, pull the plastic back-plate free and there you go. I ran into a speed bump when I realized the metal body of the keyboard couldn't be removed, to the best of my knowledge it looked like the key switches were attached to the body itself as well as the pcb. Not stopping there I took some 91% rubbing alcohol and some cotton pads and began to clean the back of the pcb as well as I could, with the back cleaned I reassembled the keyboard with four of the screws and filled the keyboard with as much of the alcohol as I could. I let it sit and soak for about 30 minutes before I tilted it on its side and began to let alcohol run though the keyboard and drain out of the bottom. I repeated that four or five time before I took it all back apart and zip tied it to my shower curtain rod to air dry. It took about 3 hours before It had dried to the point I felt safe putting it all back together and firing it back up, and what do you know it works! I've lost some of the creature comforts the board had before, things like the mute button dose't work the brightness button dosen't do anything and the button to illuminate only WASD the space bar and arrow keys is equally as unless. Aside from those few things the only side effect I can notice is several of the keys stick and are harder to push than they were before the sugar volcano erupted on my desk. I thought about using WD-40 to fix it but have read several conflicting articles, some say that it wont hurt anything at all while others insist that it will degrade the plastic of the keycaps as well as damage the pcb. If anyone has any suggestions about how I can remedy this I would welcome the input. 

 

I hope whoever reads this enjoyed the tale, and like Luke pointed out don't be afraid to take apart your broken electronics to see if you can fix them.  

[Jimkirk363]

Make sure any electronics are unplugged before u take apart or u risk being shot across the room lol.....  Been there and done that.

[T_Swizzle]

Definitely, I'm a pretty large guy and got knocked on my ass because a friend of mine told me he turned off the breaker for a dryer and I went to unwire the plug