A500 Keyboard Repair

[Naton]

Hi, I could prbably find the answer to this a million places on this internet, so sorry to drag it here but I'm just not good at searching :roll:
My A500's escape key wasn't working, so I opened up the keyboard and found one of the lines (forgive the terminology) connecting it has a scratch in it. Some people say I should get a soldering iron, some say I can fix it with aluminium foil.. Anyone have a definitive solution? :-)

[weirdami]

I had the same problem years ago with a used A1200 and the seller didn't say anything about it and I didn't find out that programs actually did use that key until I opened up the keyboard and saw that the trace was cut. All along I just figured that nobody on Amiga used the escape key, just like nobody used the help key. I wonder if non-working escape keys are a big problem with Amiga keyboards in general.

[Xamiche]

Naton wrote:
Hi, I could prbably find the answer to this a million places on this internet, so sorry to drag it here but I'm just not good at searching :roll:
My A500's escape key wasn't working, so I opened up the keyboard and found one of the lines (forgive the terminology) connecting it has a scratch in it. Some people say I should get a soldering iron, some say I can fix it with aluminium foil.. Anyone have a definitive solution? :-)

When you say scratch, do you mean on the circuit board, or on the plastic film underneath the actual keys? If it's the circuit board, a little bit of solder should bridge the gap. If it's the plastic film, that makes it a little harder. In the past I've repaired such damage with a conductive pen, though they are around $30 and it may be cheaper for you to buy a new keyboard from ebay or somewhere. Kinda depends on which country you live in really. I tried the aluminium foil thing but it doesn't really work too well. You get intermittent contact which makes the keyboard unreliable.  

[orange]

you could try something like this
also on membrane.
liquid silver is as expensive as it sounds, but you don't need much of it.
i wouldn't use soldering, it melts plastic.
test the line with multimeter (measure in Kilo/Mega Ohms)

[Naton]

Thanks guys, I think I'll go for one of these conductive pens, as the only replacement keyboard on ebay at the moment is $80 without shipping :-o, plus you never know when something like that could come in handy again.
It's pretty annoying having my Amiga lying in pieces because of one button, just after I cleaned the thing up and put it back together :roll: so I'll try and get one asap, thanks :lol:

[Xamiche]

I think the conductive pen is a great way to go. I bought one to repair an A600 keyboard membrane. The pen was certainly cheaper than a replacement keyboard and as you say, you never know when such a tool will come in handy again.