Keyboard + Dish Washer - What could of went wrong?

I decided to try a little experiment with a old black-sliver Logitech desktop keyboard that was dirty from a lot of use. So instead of taking the keys off one by one and cleaning I decided to throw it in the dish washer with all the other dishes.

I decided to try this since there was reports of people having electronics that still worked after being washed in the washing machine. I was going to use water to clean my keyboard anyways so I decided to give it a shot.

After letting the keyboard dry after 2 days I decided to plug it in via the usb cable. It worked but there was a very interesting side effect, some of the keys didn't do what they were set to do. Say the volume wheel would mute my speakers instead of adjusting the volume. Other random keys would do weird things also.

Maybe the dish soap might of messed it up somehow or maybe it was the heat. So I guess the lesson is not to dish wash your keyboard

 

Well, I'm pretty sure that the dish soap probably corroded some IC traces and you have have a bunch of shorts...good destructive job though!

 

:laugh: I don't think you were supposed to put it in with dirty dishes!

 

No way you can completely dry a keyboard in two days without opening it up. I’m sure water was still inside when you connected it. You’ll be surprised how long it would take to dry all the water in a closed environment without any air flow (especially during the summer with high humidity)

 

All good points so far. let me add one more.

It's generally a bad idea to throw electronics in the dish washer. You can clean your keyboard just fine that way, by taking off all the keys, then removing the circuitry, and then washing only keys + keyboard "case". Leave the IC out of it, and you'll be a happier man. (You might want to wrap the keys in some cloth or something to keep them together)

 

I think his problem is that he put it in with the dishes, thus implying that he put soap in also.
Soap = bad. Plus, you run extra risk of getting food chunks blown into it.

All articles and advice on putting keyboards in dishwashers say to do it BY ITSELF, TOP SHELF, NO SOAP, and NO HEAT DRYING.

Then take it out and let it set for like 4-5 days minimum, often in front of a fan. Some say a hair dryer on extreme low setting, but even doing that a few times a day you want to wait several days before trying to use it.

 

Yeah the soap was a bad idea.
I don't think it would have been bad if you just put it in the dish washer by itself (no dirty dishes) and didn't use soap. You really just want some water to clean your keyboard.
And like others said you should have waited longer for it to try.

Oh well, no better way to learn I guess.

 

Anything that is talked about with the sentence "it seemed like a good idea at the time" is usually a bad idea in therms on healty life. That being said, coputer destruction is ALWAYS a good thing but the use of spare parts IS strongly recommended

 

I had a feeling I should of left the soap out of it but by the time it came up in my mind it was to late. About any food chunks, the dishes are prewashed so that wouldn't really of done it.

Basically I was being lazy and I just decided to experiment

 

Should have cooked it in the dryer afterwards

 

I popped the tray off the base, and the keys off the tray. After soaking them in peroxide and later detergent, I rinsed everything off, let the stuff dry, and popped them back onto the base. Everything's much cleaner