Make a Techie Name Badge

Step 2 Remove and wash keys...

Remove the keys by prying them up with a screwdriver or similar tool. This will get easier as more keys are removed; start with near keys that aren't needed for your name, so you can scratch them up and not lose any keys. Throw the keys into a net bag and put them in a dishwasher to clean off the finger gunk and dust. You can probably slosh them around in some soapy water by hand if you don't have a dishwasher...

If you're making more than one badge, or are likely to EVER make more than one, it may be helpful to make SOME effort to sort the keys into some sort of holder.

Comments

[brighterfusion]

Why not just put the keyboard into the dishwasher whole before you pop the keys off? Put it in by itself on the top rack, with the keys pointing down. Shake a ton of water out of the keys at the beginning of the drying cycle. Since you're not going to be plugging it into anything, you can take it apart right away after the washer is done. I've cleaned a couple keyboards this way and continued using them after they dry out completely (waiting a week or two to be safe).

[PikeMinnow]

Or you could just take off the front side of the chassis and, leaving the keys in, pop that in the dishwasher. The circuits might still be good, so I'd keep them in working condition so that if you wanted to make something else (like the singing keyboard with the hallmark card thing, or the cheap flexible keyboard)

[westfw]

Hmm. I guess because in my case I raided keyboards from the company "e-waste" bin over a period of months, extracting vowels and other common letters particular to our family. Popping off keys as you discard, or find discarded keyboards is more space efficient than saving whole keyboards till you're ready to start the project...