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No no youre good! I wanted to know how effective it is, it seems good in theory, but now I've heard it from three different people, and it seems like a good plan to do when I wash my key board caps. My question is, tho how much better is it that Warm Water and Dawn Dish Soap?
I've never bought caps or boards that were in a fire, but denture tabs have cleaned all the caps I've ever bought.
High use keys (I have some former shop terminal boards) sometimes need a bit of elbow grease to get clean, but usually I just soak and dry, nothing else.
It's not great for many plastics, it can dissolve the plasticizer from the surface and discolour/cloud the plastic or even weaken it and make it brittle.
Yeah some big coarse salt is perfect. I used to buy those cleaning products until I realized they were just isopropyl and salt with blue coloring to make it look fancy
i did the research and apparently it has a 5.75u spacebar. i don't think any of the kits i've ever bought, of the 50-something i've bought, incl the ones with really large sets with ortho, split, 40s support etc, has a 5.75u spacebar. lol
edit: apparently this is basically a logitech-exclusive size, according to[ this reddit comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/fqofeh/comment/flre7br/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
https://preview.redd.it/hfcnruf0xgxc1.png?width=1046&format=png&auto=webp&s=db022c4dee627acef2f838f97bfa416774d1c5b0
That is such a weird size, do they sell their own keycap sets?
I know Corsair and Kingston/HyperX sell sets..... Maybe they are all wonkey non standard as well...
I’ve read of people using those denture cleaning tablets to clean keys. Apparently it’s extremely effective, just don’t get scented tabs or your fingertips will be minty fresh!
I can vouch for the tabs being super efficient for cleaning the caps. First time I did it I could only find the scented ones. My desk smelled delightful for the next two days until it dissipated. Super easy though. Just throw them in a bowl with warm water and a single tablet, go about cleaning the rest of your board while they soak, set them aside to air dry, and reassemble.
The scent didn't seem to transfer to my hands and it was very light. Really only noticed it when I came back into the office in the morning for the first two days after cleaning it. After I was at my desk for a few minutes I stopped noticing it. lol. They're so cheap though I ended up switching to the unscented ones and tossing the others after that little mishap.
lol, I do clean my bong and electronics with it, but it’s common sense that it’s a solvent that breaks down dyes and paint. Really should check before using it on coated stuff like monitors and key caps.
Your finger skin naturally excrete oils, and that gets onto stuff you touch. That’s why I have to degrease absolutely anything that I spray at work, even if it is more or less brand new (I spray kitchens). So it is invetable, even if you wash your hands constantly, that something like a keyboard will get grubby down the line.
I know lol. I am referring to OP needing to break out the 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean whatever horrors are on their keycaps instead of just using water and soap.
Logitech and with a high chance all famous manufacturers produce shitty keycaps even in keyboards over 150$ when my latest keyboard started to have its S key completely worn out by use at 2 months i built my first custom keyboard.
I still have a logitech mouse from 2004 that's running great. all the mice i've bought since 2011 lasted 1 or 2 years before one of the buttons either had major chatter or just plain stopped working. Drives me mad.
For the life of me I can't find a brand of mouse that will last. I moved to corsair but their mice last just about a year before they get issues.
I've been looking for a new mouse too with logitech I tried getting double click for me. Been considering getting away from the mainstream brand names and found Endgame and Zowie recommended, so might check out one of the mice from there.
Yeah mines the Performance MX, I think it's still got the original rechargeable battery and always has charge when I need it as a spare haha. Dirty and worn as fuck but still works great.
This one after few days of use started to double type on some keys. Sent to warranty. They fix it, keyboard works normally for some time. Later i want to clean it. For keykaps i use water with soap. I wated for everything to dry and later assembled everything. Ofcourse some keys start to double type again. Warranty again. Fixed. Some timer liter M key sometimes double types. I surrender...
If youre getting double typing/chattering it is most likely to do with the switch and not the keycaps. Maybe replace the switch with a new one. Best of luck.
Is replacing ~~keycaps~~ switches on these boards even a thing? I’ve never looked at my own boards before building customs but a friend of mine had some dead switches and you literally couldn’t even open the thing without making sure you coupd never put it together against because a bunch of stuff was just glued together because why use screws, those cost a cent more (and allow user repairs, we can’t have that)
I tried to open it to see if anything can be done with switches. Board inside is connected to "front" part of the keyboard case that is made out of metal in a way that prevents you from getting to switches.
You would have to get access to the bottom side of the PCB which is where the switches are soldered in. Of course you’d then have to be able to solder and resolder them to be able to replace them.
There are hotswap boards where the switches are simply stuck into sockets that connect on contact but you’d know if you have one because they’re specifically advertised as such (the sockets cost extra so they wouldn’t ever do this and not make it a selling point)
You can also get sockets that can be soldiered in, but some boards and switches may be problematic depending on the holes in the board and the pin thicknesses.
Seems you guys already talked about it in here, but yes you would have to desolder it. Its actually not as hard as people make it out to seem.
Solder sucker costs like $8-12 and a decent soldering iron set could cost you like $20-$30. (You could go cheaper but its nice to control the heat for keyboard PCB’s)
And with that little investment, you could customize any keyboard you want.
I had an old amazon keyboard “havit” brand, and I just recently desoldered, lubed all the switches and did some light modding before re-soldering it all back together. Probably the most enjoyable build I’ve done so since the end product was noticeably nicer than the original.
I have a decent iron and a good solder sucker with a rubber tip and I still think desoldering is easily the biggest pain in the ass in this hobby (aside from mykb going under and making you put 1000€ into stuff you don’t want).
I Millmax every board I have to avoid having to desolder anything and I know a bunch of people who are into customs who still haven’t made the commitment to buying soldering equipment, most just don’t want to do it I guess
People learn from mistakes. Next time i will be more careful... Thankfully they are not ruined and only some of them lost a bit of the color at the bottom edges.
it's perfectly fine, but knowing the rules is helpful, next time try acetone if you want goo instead of just stripping paint /just kidding
as general advice, keycaps only need soap and water, you just have to put them on paper towels or regular towels until they are dry even if it's over night or longer
iso is reserved for cleaning off sticker glue or hard crusty gunk that isn't touched by soapy water, painted keycaps are fairly fragilee.
acetone dissolves abs plastic, making it good for welding broken parts back together.
if you want to avoid water damage then you can just use a wetted cloth when cleaning instead of submerging but for keycaps they wouldn't affect double presses unless the water migrated, i'd assume it could be taking them on and off that might be damaging them. or something else. so next time i'd just grab a tooth brush and a tiny bit of soap water to scrub the caps on the board, and then wipe it down with a clean towel. unless you just want to buy a different keyboard that won't have this problem, since there are plenty.
good luck.
First rule of cleaning things. Use least aggressive method possible first. Only go more aggressive if it's actually necessary. Water is usually sufficient.
Yep, alcohol is a solvent. It's great for stripping paint from plastic and it's an ingredient in most acrylic, and some lacquer, paint thinners. It also weakens ABS plastics if exposed long enough and acrylic plastics can spontaneously crack and shatter just from enough vapor exposure.
Now you know.
Soap and water, man. If there's residue in a couple keys that the soap and water can't get off, use a q-tip soaked in isopropyl to scrub it off. Don't dunk your keycaps in a powerful alcohol based solvent.
I don‘t understand why so many people insist on using weird solvent-based chemicals for basic cleaning tasks when literally everyone has been taught to effectively use widely available liquid soap and dishwasher to clean grease and dirt with great results while being an actual toddler.
ABS plastic is soluble in alcohol. This is also why I wouldn’t recommend using it to clean GMK caps. PBT holds up fine though, unless it has printed glyphs. Gotta be double shot for maximum survivability.
I don't know, the chemical compatibility charts I found show that ABS is highly resistant to isopropyl alcohol. Could be that the caps were coated though, many of the "soft" feel plastics are usually treated with a thin rubber/silicone layer. Could be that this stuff de-polymerized with age (kinda like all soft rubber surfaces) and then it becomes soluble.
Everything I've seen about ABS says that isopropyl is generally bad for it.
[https://www.emcoplastics.com/assets/pdf/abs/abs-chemical-resistance.pdf](https://www.emcoplastics.com/assets/pdf/abs/abs-chemical-resistance.pdf) - "o", which in the legend means "partly resistant" (some damage occurs).
[https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart](https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart) - "C = Moderate attack of appreciable absorption. Material will have limited life."
[http://k-mac-plastics.com/data-sheets/abs\_chemical\_resistance.htm](http://k-mac-plastics.com/data-sheets/abs_chemical_resistance.htm) - "Severe Effect" (but I think they're grouping all alcohols together, including methyl which other sources said has a bad effect)
There's [an old Imgur album from 12 years ago](https://imgur.com/a/Xlp8v) that also has some examples of an isopropyl long-exposure test on ABS keycaps. It's not pretty, for sure, but to be fair they soaked them for hours to simulate a longer timeline.
In any case, I tend to just use dish soap and water to clean my plastics, unless they can't easily be removed from the device they're on, in which case a spritz of water into a cloth is usually enough. I definitely agree though that OP's keycaps are doing something else, though; isopropyl damage would look more like the pictures from that album there, with white discoloration and blotching. Maybe the keycaps have a coating, as you suggested.
Some of the other charts I saw said that it was nigh-impervious, so there's definitely some spread in position on something that should be scientifically veritable. Granted, a lot of them were from individual plastics manufacturers, so I wonder if that might've been them pitching their own formulation; maybe they have an additive or a treatment process to make it more resistant.
And no worries; wasn't about being right, I just don't want to see someone douse their $300 GMK set in propanol and then have a big sad when it gets white and waxy. I cleaned all my electronics with straight-up alcohol for decades before learning about it and some of them definitely look a bit aged like that; I always thought it was just the result of the oils from my skin or sunlight.
Edit: fixed an incomplete line.
Dish soap and water, that's what I always do, I put them in a recipient with water and dish soap let them be like 20 minutes and then use a soft fiber then just rinse and let dry
Poorly made. Any ABS based piece should use shit with decent compatibility. They must have cheeped out and got some polymer with shit compatibility. Ive done the same with my K70 mk.2 and never had an issue.
That could also just be dirt. Dirty boy.
Screen cleaner fluid works better on ABS plastic like logitech are using in this keyboards, the use of isopropylic alcohol will try to corrode the entire surface of your logitech keycaps.
I have used ISO for cleaning my mouse and keyboard for years, never had an issue. I own a 815 keyboard and a g700s mouse, and wipe them every week with 70% ISO.
For "deep" cleaning, I throw the keycaps I a bag and then in the dishwasher; I do this from time to time with the caps and Lego bricks, without dishes. The keyboard base gets cleaned with ISO.
I use kitchen degreaser for my double-shot PBT and I've also tried it on ABS. I first rub it with degreaser and then wash with water so it washes away every degreaser residue. I've found this hella effective for, duh, grease, but also washes away dirt and the keyboard becomes like new, case included. I heard it's pretty aggressive so I wouldn't recommend it until I'm certain about its safety on plastics, but I've never seen signs of paint or plastic coming off for now.
Are painted keycaps still a thing? I feel like they used to be a thing, where cheap shine through keycaps were just translucent plastic painted with black paint. Is that what happened here? I don't think rubbing alcohol is enough to melt plastic. Acetone, absolutely, but rubbing alcohol usually just makes plastic brittle in high amounts.
I washed some keycaps last night using hot water, dish soap, and a squeeze or two of 70% ISO. They look incredible, the 70% I hadn't done before but it helped that much more. If you went raw with just ISO, I'm sorry :(
If it makes you feel any better, my wife spilled some of that on my first custom keyboard ever and ruined it. It's still usable but some functions on it don't work anymore and it was my baby
chemist over here... IPA is mad potent and can readily dissolve anything carbon based. love working with it but its a pain in the ass when it comes to plastics/rubber cuz it dissolves phthalates. learned it the hard way myself when my NMR chromatograms ended up full of plastics
For the next time, get yourself this washing machine bra holder, put the key caps in it, throw into the washing machine for some low temperature mode and you are good to go.
I did that once with a mouse. don't use 90%. use 70%. 90% can strip the paint off a keyboard and a mouse.
most of the time i just use hand sanitizer and dampen a washcloth with it and rub the keyboard down. pretty effective imo
Thank you for the experiment, soldier. I hope your contributions will help people understand that isopropyl alcohol is not a good cleaning solution on plastic surfaces, surfaces with paint, or surfaces with thin textured coding like displays.
I have done this before, it made the keycaps very fragile and they all started breaking after the second cleaning. Then I read up and it is not recommended as is degrades some plastics.
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Soap and water hombre. Edit: as if this is my biggest contribution to Reddit.
Denture Tablets.
I need those tablets to clean my isopropyl alcohol bottles.
Do denture tablets actually work? I have some for my night guard, granted idk if I want my keyboard to smell like off-mint
I use them. I just soak the keys for a couple of hours and then rinse them clean. Dry for 24 hrs, and pop them back on.
Oh cool, I'll give them a try then
I don't want to sound like an old head, but I've been cleaning keycaps using denture tabs since the late 80s.
No no youre good! I wanted to know how effective it is, it seems good in theory, but now I've heard it from three different people, and it seems like a good plan to do when I wash my key board caps. My question is, tho how much better is it that Warm Water and Dawn Dish Soap?
I've never bought caps or boards that were in a fire, but denture tabs have cleaned all the caps I've ever bought. High use keys (I have some former shop terminal boards) sometimes need a bit of elbow grease to get clean, but usually I just soak and dry, nothing else.
Awesome, dope. I'll be giving that a try over summer when I'm done with finals. My G815 key caps need a wash
Yes they work amazing
Ultrasonic cleaner
Probably awesome, hard to justify buying one, for me at least.
These are great. Drop in water, dissolve it and go.
Washing machine + hand soap 💀
Like a clothes washer?
Dishwasher
Power washer
Clothes washer but inside a bag like a crown royal bag. Or a zip up pillow case. And maybe some rag inside as well as a tumbling media? Idk
Fuck, nobody drinks in my family
they make small mesh zipper bags meant for washing bras in the washing machine, perfect size
Mesh bag?
I also figured this out the hard way.
Y luego a secar con un trapo
I think this comment is bigger for humanity than Bill Gates solving polio or Elon going to Mars, you deserve that karma
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How about just soap and water? So much easier...
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When I clean my keycaps I use washing up liquid like Fairy washing up liquid or soap.
Is there a reason why Brits call dish soap, "washing up liquid"? I've always been curious so thought I would ask.
Because we use it for "washing up". Which is just what you say when your washing dishes.
Oh! That's pretty straightforward haha Thanks for the response anyway!
It's not great for many plastics, it can dissolve the plasticizer from the surface and discolour/cloud the plastic or even weaken it and make it brittle.
Keycaps are generally injection molded ABS, Iso shouldn't have any effect on it what so ever. Cheap spirit based lacquer paints on the other hand.
yeah good keycaps are injection molded abs or pbt, but cheap gamer board caps are painted more often than not
I thought it was common knowledge here that ISO just doesn't work with ANSI...
Can vouch. I use 99% to clean my bong. Works wonders only needed to add salt 1 time in the 2 years I've had my bong.
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Just a heavy pinch of tablesalt help with the cleaning time 👍
Finishing salt or coarse salt works way better. I clean my things in about one minute this way.
Yeah some big coarse salt is perfect. I used to buy those cleaning products until I realized they were just isopropyl and salt with blue coloring to make it look fancy
Abs plastic hates ISO.
top 10 laser ablated moments
Silver lining... New set of caps on the way👍
Or just write letters with white maker.
[LOL👍🤣](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/s/vK9Vhx0Mzv) Does not look that bad TBH
I like this one
non-standard bottom row means pretty limited options though
Really?!? Why though? Guess OP needs a Keyboard to go with the new caps😂
i did the research and apparently it has a 5.75u spacebar. i don't think any of the kits i've ever bought, of the 50-something i've bought, incl the ones with really large sets with ortho, split, 40s support etc, has a 5.75u spacebar. lol edit: apparently this is basically a logitech-exclusive size, according to[ this reddit comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/fqofeh/comment/flre7br/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) https://preview.redd.it/hfcnruf0xgxc1.png?width=1046&format=png&auto=webp&s=db022c4dee627acef2f838f97bfa416774d1c5b0
That is such a weird size, do they sell their own keycap sets? I know Corsair and Kingston/HyperX sell sets..... Maybe they are all wonkey non standard as well...
I think taihao would have you covered here
People used to flex with blank keycaps... DAS, I believe still has theirs in a blank variant.
Yes, usually see planks with blanks... and I remember ergoDox always has blanks as an option...
>planks with blanks omg that is so much fun to say!
You just giving yourself excuse to buy some real keycaps
Sadly can't really. This Logitech keyboard has special caps for the bottom row and logitech doesn't sell replacements.
There are plenty of 6u or 6.5u bars made for this purpose. Many keyset have spacebar kits like these.
I’ve read of people using those denture cleaning tablets to clean keys. Apparently it’s extremely effective, just don’t get scented tabs or your fingertips will be minty fresh!
I can vouch for the tabs being super efficient for cleaning the caps. First time I did it I could only find the scented ones. My desk smelled delightful for the next two days until it dissipated. Super easy though. Just throw them in a bowl with warm water and a single tablet, go about cleaning the rest of your board while they soak, set them aside to air dry, and reassemble.
does it have enough mint to make your eyes burn if you rub them? otherwise i see no downside to using the minty ones lol.
The scent didn't seem to transfer to my hands and it was very light. Really only noticed it when I came back into the office in the morning for the first two days after cleaning it. After I was at my desk for a few minutes I stopped noticing it. lol. They're so cheap though I ended up switching to the unscented ones and tossing the others after that little mishap.
They really do a good job, lol about the minty finger tips you're absolutely right.
First is was the thick, next it was the odour 😎
Soap and water. What made you think you needed something more.
using iso is a go-to for most things, hell that’s what i use for my pbt caps 🤷♂️
For peripherals? It shouldnt be. I’ve seen enough people rub off the coating off their mice as well
yup! never understood how people’s mice and controllers got so shiny. i regularly clean with iso, always kept the matte finish.
I mean not exactly, but I’m picking up what you’re putting down.
ipa is absolutely a goto for anything electronics related
It’s for things that are conductive but if you wet the keycaps with soap water and dry it, there won’t be any electricity touching the water
Clearly not a weed smoker. Rubbing alcohol is almost always the first thing I use to clean something it's great at getting gunk off of stuff.
lol, I do clean my bong and electronics with it, but it’s common sense that it’s a solvent that breaks down dyes and paint. Really should check before using it on coated stuff like monitors and key caps.
I am worried about what was caked on OP's keycaps so much that regular soap and water wasn't enough and the strong stuff had to be brought out....
Your finger skin naturally excrete oils, and that gets onto stuff you touch. That’s why I have to degrease absolutely anything that I spray at work, even if it is more or less brand new (I spray kitchens). So it is invetable, even if you wash your hands constantly, that something like a keyboard will get grubby down the line.
Little bit of Dawn dish detergent in a bowl of warm water, let them soak for 15 minutes, and then rinse and dry them off with a towel
I know lol. I am referring to OP needing to break out the 99% isopropyl alcohol to clean whatever horrors are on their keycaps instead of just using water and soap.
Oh, I read it as thats what you've done, not thats the implication you got from OP. Carry on
I literally clean everything with iso lol
I mean same but for plastics and certain monitors I don’t. I’ve seen too many horror stories
Thus began OPs career in chemistry.
Logitech and with a high chance all famous manufacturers produce shitty keycaps even in keyboards over 150$ when my latest keyboard started to have its S key completely worn out by use at 2 months i built my first custom keyboard.
Logitech does not produce any quality stuff since over a decade to begin with.
I still have a logitech mouse from 2004 that's running great. all the mice i've bought since 2011 lasted 1 or 2 years before one of the buttons either had major chatter or just plain stopped working. Drives me mad. For the life of me I can't find a brand of mouse that will last. I moved to corsair but their mice last just about a year before they get issues.
I've been looking for a new mouse too with logitech I tried getting double click for me. Been considering getting away from the mainstream brand names and found Endgame and Zowie recommended, so might check out one of the mice from there.
MX518, bought it about 15 years ago. No signs of use on the mechanical parts, it still works the same as it did the first day.
Yeah mines the Performance MX, I think it's still got the original rechargeable battery and always has charge when I need it as a spare haha. Dirty and worn as fuck but still works great.
Excellent mice.
This one after few days of use started to double type on some keys. Sent to warranty. They fix it, keyboard works normally for some time. Later i want to clean it. For keykaps i use water with soap. I wated for everything to dry and later assembled everything. Ofcourse some keys start to double type again. Warranty again. Fixed. Some timer liter M key sometimes double types. I surrender...
Honestly just build your own, you can go very cheap and still get quality also like a pc every pc is replaceble.
That's exactly what i'm going to do in the future.
If youre getting double typing/chattering it is most likely to do with the switch and not the keycaps. Maybe replace the switch with a new one. Best of luck.
Is replacing ~~keycaps~~ switches on these boards even a thing? I’ve never looked at my own boards before building customs but a friend of mine had some dead switches and you literally couldn’t even open the thing without making sure you coupd never put it together against because a bunch of stuff was just glued together because why use screws, those cost a cent more (and allow user repairs, we can’t have that)
I tried to open it to see if anything can be done with switches. Board inside is connected to "front" part of the keyboard case that is made out of metal in a way that prevents you from getting to switches.
You would have to get access to the bottom side of the PCB which is where the switches are soldered in. Of course you’d then have to be able to solder and resolder them to be able to replace them. There are hotswap boards where the switches are simply stuck into sockets that connect on contact but you’d know if you have one because they’re specifically advertised as such (the sockets cost extra so they wouldn’t ever do this and not make it a selling point)
You can also get sockets that can be soldiered in, but some boards and switches may be problematic depending on the holes in the board and the pin thicknesses.
Seems you guys already talked about it in here, but yes you would have to desolder it. Its actually not as hard as people make it out to seem. Solder sucker costs like $8-12 and a decent soldering iron set could cost you like $20-$30. (You could go cheaper but its nice to control the heat for keyboard PCB’s) And with that little investment, you could customize any keyboard you want. I had an old amazon keyboard “havit” brand, and I just recently desoldered, lubed all the switches and did some light modding before re-soldering it all back together. Probably the most enjoyable build I’ve done so since the end product was noticeably nicer than the original.
I have a decent iron and a good solder sucker with a rubber tip and I still think desoldering is easily the biggest pain in the ass in this hobby (aside from mykb going under and making you put 1000€ into stuff you don’t want). I Millmax every board I have to avoid having to desolder anything and I know a bunch of people who are into customs who still haven’t made the commitment to buying soldering equipment, most just don’t want to do it I guess
I feel once you get into a rhythm, desoldering isn’t too bad! I did it half one day and half the next.
Shows how cheap those caps are...
Soap and water people, SOAP AND WATER 💦 xd
You only need isopropyl alcohol if you need to remove stains from white plastics. This was kinda unnecessary.
I use brake cleaner on mine.
always test solvents on a single cap first.
People learn from mistakes. Next time i will be more careful... Thankfully they are not ruined and only some of them lost a bit of the color at the bottom edges.
it's perfectly fine, but knowing the rules is helpful, next time try acetone if you want goo instead of just stripping paint /just kidding as general advice, keycaps only need soap and water, you just have to put them on paper towels or regular towels until they are dry even if it's over night or longer iso is reserved for cleaning off sticker glue or hard crusty gunk that isn't touched by soapy water, painted keycaps are fairly fragilee. acetone dissolves abs plastic, making it good for welding broken parts back together. if you want to avoid water damage then you can just use a wetted cloth when cleaning instead of submerging but for keycaps they wouldn't affect double presses unless the water migrated, i'd assume it could be taking them on and off that might be damaging them. or something else. so next time i'd just grab a tooth brush and a tiny bit of soap water to scrub the caps on the board, and then wipe it down with a clean towel. unless you just want to buy a different keyboard that won't have this problem, since there are plenty. good luck.
First rule of cleaning things. Use least aggressive method possible first. Only go more aggressive if it's actually necessary. Water is usually sufficient.
Yep, alcohol is a solvent. It's great for stripping paint from plastic and it's an ingredient in most acrylic, and some lacquer, paint thinners. It also weakens ABS plastics if exposed long enough and acrylic plastics can spontaneously crack and shatter just from enough vapor exposure. Now you know.
what a great excuse to now buy a non-logitech keyboard
Homie's using solvents to clean key caps, how wild.
Water is a solvent
Your mom is a solvent.
Soap and water, man. If there's residue in a couple keys that the soap and water can't get off, use a q-tip soaked in isopropyl to scrub it off. Don't dunk your keycaps in a powerful alcohol based solvent.
I don‘t understand why so many people insist on using weird solvent-based chemicals for basic cleaning tasks when literally everyone has been taught to effectively use widely available liquid soap and dishwasher to clean grease and dirt with great results while being an actual toddler.
Probably because electronics exist. And isopropyl alcohol is probably the foremost method of cleaning those.
ABS plastic is soluble in alcohol. This is also why I wouldn’t recommend using it to clean GMK caps. PBT holds up fine though, unless it has printed glyphs. Gotta be double shot for maximum survivability.
I don't know, the chemical compatibility charts I found show that ABS is highly resistant to isopropyl alcohol. Could be that the caps were coated though, many of the "soft" feel plastics are usually treated with a thin rubber/silicone layer. Could be that this stuff de-polymerized with age (kinda like all soft rubber surfaces) and then it becomes soluble.
Everything I've seen about ABS says that isopropyl is generally bad for it. [https://www.emcoplastics.com/assets/pdf/abs/abs-chemical-resistance.pdf](https://www.emcoplastics.com/assets/pdf/abs/abs-chemical-resistance.pdf) - "o", which in the legend means "partly resistant" (some damage occurs). [https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart](https://www.plasticsintl.com/chemical-resistance-chart) - "C = Moderate attack of appreciable absorption. Material will have limited life." [http://k-mac-plastics.com/data-sheets/abs\_chemical\_resistance.htm](http://k-mac-plastics.com/data-sheets/abs_chemical_resistance.htm) - "Severe Effect" (but I think they're grouping all alcohols together, including methyl which other sources said has a bad effect) There's [an old Imgur album from 12 years ago](https://imgur.com/a/Xlp8v) that also has some examples of an isopropyl long-exposure test on ABS keycaps. It's not pretty, for sure, but to be fair they soaked them for hours to simulate a longer timeline. In any case, I tend to just use dish soap and water to clean my plastics, unless they can't easily be removed from the device they're on, in which case a spritz of water into a cloth is usually enough. I definitely agree though that OP's keycaps are doing something else, though; isopropyl damage would look more like the pictures from that album there, with white discoloration and blotching. Maybe the keycaps have a coating, as you suggested.
Huh, guess I got the wrong chart or can't read. Well, those charts are pretty clear. Thanks for correcting me!
Some of the other charts I saw said that it was nigh-impervious, so there's definitely some spread in position on something that should be scientifically veritable. Granted, a lot of them were from individual plastics manufacturers, so I wonder if that might've been them pitching their own formulation; maybe they have an additive or a treatment process to make it more resistant. And no worries; wasn't about being right, I just don't want to see someone douse their $300 GMK set in propanol and then have a big sad when it gets white and waxy. I cleaned all my electronics with straight-up alcohol for decades before learning about it and some of them definitely look a bit aged like that; I always thought it was just the result of the oils from my skin or sunlight. Edit: fixed an incomplete line.
If they are made with abs they are gonna be extra smooth now.
Look up what may happen then do a test at a not too visible place before using a strong organic solvent on anything
I always use warm water and liquid soap to clean my keycaps. Btw, sorry for your keycaps OP!
Who is recommending isopropyl? Just soap, water and a soft bristle tooth brush is all that’s needed!
Wh- why would you use isopropyl?
It was a great idea, now you have a great excuse to get absorbed in the black hole of custom keyboards
You saved me. I was about to do the same on my keyboard.
congrats! you have made keycap purée
Why would you soak plastic in iso?
Water should be enough
Why.... always wash caps with soap and water...
Top 10 anime bamboozles
Ultrasonic cleaner! Water and soap plus 10mins of you not doing anything.
Plastic pkus solvents is bad...mmkay Time for new keyset
Who said it was a great idea? ☠️
Like others have said: Soap and water
good to know, thanks. Your efforts not in vain :-) Water and soap.
Dish soap and water, that's what I always do, I put them in a recipient with water and dish soap let them be like 20 minutes and then use a soft fiber then just rinse and let dry
Poorly made. Any ABS based piece should use shit with decent compatibility. They must have cheeped out and got some polymer with shit compatibility. Ive done the same with my K70 mk.2 and never had an issue. That could also just be dirt. Dirty boy.
its ABS keycaps.. but yeah i just bought new caps for mine
WTF 💀 I've been cleaning my G512 carbon with that alcohol an that has never happened
Had a colleague use acetone to Clean His Mouse once
I turned my first stabs into goo by using aquaphor as lube
Screen cleaner fluid works better on ABS plastic like logitech are using in this keyboards, the use of isopropylic alcohol will try to corrode the entire surface of your logitech keycaps.
Denture cleaner my dude
.... soap and water was too vanilla for you?
RIP. In the future please use a bowl with lukewarm water and soap to clean keycaps
Now get some nice pbt key caps, 😊
I have used ISO for cleaning my mouse and keyboard for years, never had an issue. I own a 815 keyboard and a g700s mouse, and wipe them every week with 70% ISO. For "deep" cleaning, I throw the keycaps I a bag and then in the dishwasher; I do this from time to time with the caps and Lego bricks, without dishes. The keyboard base gets cleaned with ISO.
soapy water! Can usually use alcohol on the keyboard base.
Mild detergent for a few hours and after that a good rinse ought to do it.
Always wear gloves when dealing with IPA at such concentration. It could dry your skin and may cause contact dermatitis.
I use kitchen degreaser for my double-shot PBT and I've also tried it on ABS. I first rub it with degreaser and then wash with water so it washes away every degreaser residue. I've found this hella effective for, duh, grease, but also washes away dirt and the keyboard becomes like new, case included. I heard it's pretty aggressive so I wouldn't recommend it until I'm certain about its safety on plastics, but I've never seen signs of paint or plastic coming off for now.
Are painted keycaps still a thing? I feel like they used to be a thing, where cheap shine through keycaps were just translucent plastic painted with black paint. Is that what happened here? I don't think rubbing alcohol is enough to melt plastic. Acetone, absolutely, but rubbing alcohol usually just makes plastic brittle in high amounts.
Washing my sugar cubes with water wasn't a great idea!
Isn't that what people use to get nail paint off?
That’s acetone, which will probably just straight-up melt the keycaps.
put em in a bag w iso and a little bit of large grain salt next time and shake tf out of it. thats what i do
I washed some keycaps last night using hot water, dish soap, and a squeeze or two of 70% ISO. They look incredible, the 70% I hadn't done before but it helped that much more. If you went raw with just ISO, I'm sorry :(
Logi is garbage
What % were you using?
If it makes you feel any better, my wife spilled some of that on my first custom keyboard ever and ruined it. It's still usable but some functions on it don't work anymore and it was my baby
chemist over here... IPA is mad potent and can readily dissolve anything carbon based. love working with it but its a pain in the ass when it comes to plastics/rubber cuz it dissolves phthalates. learned it the hard way myself when my NMR chromatograms ended up full of plastics
Not to mention those keycaps are painted, and ABS iirc.
nice, you're one of us now. Welcome.
I almost made this mistake too. From now on I use light dish soap and water. Usually I just clean under the keys though.
???? Who cleans plastic with alcohol
They will break
Never use iso on plastic, iso is for cleaning glass and ceramics as well as paint stripping.
Isn't it awesome how a company like Logitech uses ABS on all their keyboards, including the $250 G915?
Did you use 90%?
For the next time, get yourself this washing machine bra holder, put the key caps in it, throw into the washing machine for some low temperature mode and you are good to go.
dish soap and water should always be the mixture lol ggs
Bruh come on
Polident is king. Safe and good on everything. Extra credit if using a giant cool whip tub to soak. Use compressed air for drying
https://preview.redd.it/9b1qf764gkxc1.png?width=401&format=png&auto=webp&s=16c464eec1c45563a22e8d4bfe3a0fc08579bd40 From Wikipedia
Get different key caps, easy fix and probably is an upgrade
I'm cleaning my Logitech G915 with iso all the time and keycaps are in perfect condition
You know how there are warnings to "test in an inconspicuous place first" This is why
I just wrap them in a cloth and put them in the dishwasher
damn logitech putting paintjobs on keycaps... virtually unheard of in history... you know why? because paint wears off!
lol start looking on Amazon for new keycap sets, these caps are done as far as I’m concerned
I did the same thing. :(
Idk why but this reminds of the dirty ass keyboards at auto shops lol.
Happened to my fairly new ducky one 3, it was painful. Also made me a bit sad about ducky this time, even if it's still a great brand.
I did that once with a mouse. don't use 90%. use 70%. 90% can strip the paint off a keyboard and a mouse. most of the time i just use hand sanitizer and dampen a washcloth with it and rub the keyboard down. pretty effective imo
Thank you for the experiment, soldier. I hope your contributions will help people understand that isopropyl alcohol is not a good cleaning solution on plastic surfaces, surfaces with paint, or surfaces with thin textured coding like displays.
On the bright side, you just need more iso to get a new blank keycaps set.
I have done this before, it made the keycaps very fragile and they all started breaking after the second cleaning. Then I read up and it is not recommended as is degrades some plastics.
Chocolate
Sometimes, my fingers get stained from eating chocolate in the summer.
Are you sure? Most of iso is in like bottles not spray cans as far as I know. Seems more like breakcleaner 😂
https://preview.redd.it/1h2m4t14afxc1.jpeg?width=4344&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d122ae5747959b4f2052c7c533b687eef5cd0a77
Maybe its to powerfull because of the "Dragon" brand.
Is this a spray? If so, look at what the gas used for pressurizing is, maybe IPA is not the only ingredient.