Hi everyone!
My beloved iBook G4 is with a very yellowed keyboard. I need to do a retrobright with H2O2, and I was wondering if I may just soak the whole keyboard into the water + H2O2 solution? Or this may damage the electronics of the keyboard.
I think if I try to remove each key to do the retrobright treatment there is a good chance of broke a lot of the connectors.
Cheers
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I think what I’d do is an amalgam of techniques I use when cleaning keyboards and retrobriting iBook keys.
Namely, I’d begin by following
this process for just the raw cleaning of all the gunk underneath the keys. There’s a method to why I suggest doing this first before retrobrite. In your case, I’d get the same amount of 99 per cent isopropyl alcohol, but for the soak-clean, you’ll be using less because it’s thinner than the situation in the other thread. Because 99 per cent alcohol is an effective drying agent, you’ll be using more later on. I didn’t mention it in the other post, but having an old, soft toothbrush can help with loosening grime in between keys.
After that process is done, get the 40 volume strength hair dye peroxide (they sell big bottles of it at Sally’s for cheap). You’ll want this in lieu of just an all-liquid, water-consistency H2O2 solution because there’s a thickness to it — much like is seen in the 8-Bit Guy’s videos on retrobriting. It’s a bit goopy, which means while some might seep beneath the keys, the substrate there is mostly white plastic with silicone nubs (which live at the centre underneath each key). Beneath that substrate is another white plastic substrate, followed by the metal frame and, underneath, the contact points for those nubs.
In short, the goopy H2O2, after which you cover with cling wrap and then leave out in the sunlight, should do fine without damaging anything. The goop will, of course, partly dry during the sun exposure process. I usually apply it with one of those foam wedge paintbrushes (which sell for next to nothing for a 10- or 20-pack), wetting the foam with water first to make it a bit more flexible for applying the peroxide goop.
Next up, of course, is cleaning away that H2O2 goop. This is where you have some options, after you’ve given the whole thing a good rinse.
My preference for this would be to use distilled/deionized water sold by the jug. Deionized/distilled water is free of dissolved minerals which makes water a conductor, which is why I suggest it over, say, tap water or filtered water. Holding the keyboard on its side (and over a sink), let the deionized water rinse out the goop. Using a microfibre cloth or even your hand (gloved, since H2O2 on skin is no good) to help rinse away the goop until you have it looking clean.
This is where you have a choice in thoroughly drying out the assembly:
One choice would be to repeat the first step with fresh 99 per cent alcohol for a few hours or so, to free up any residual H2O2 still lingering underneath anywhere, then take it out and leave the keyboard out to dry — ideally atop a towel of paper towels, over the next day or two, flipping it halfway in the drying process.
The
other choice is to get a cheap bag of dry rice, pour it into the tub/bin you used in the first step, and bury your keyboard inside it. Dry rice is
extremely hydrophilic and will suck up any moisture remaining from the previous steps. You’ll want to keep it in the rice for a couple of days, then put the used rice into a compost bin.
You could even do both methods in tandem, but I doubt it’ll make much of a difference.
At this point, you should not only have a clean keyboard, but also a whitened one which is completely dry, inside and out.
At this point, you should be able to plug it back in. This cleaning/retrobriting process may take a little longer than the previous suggestion, but on the upside you no longer have to labour over removing the scissor mechanisms on something like 78 different keys, and it also cleans and whitens the non-key filler spots (like around the inverted “T” arrow keys and also the spring-loaded release levers).
