Keyboard Membrane repair

Hi all, nothing really to worry about but thought someone might have some thoughts.

Basically my 2 year old daughter (Sophie) has a little barbie learning system thing which teaches the alphabet and numbers. It used to belong to my 3 year old (Theo). She gave it up a while ago when she started nursery and now she uses daddy's laptop but Sophie has really been enjoying it.

Anyway over the last week or two it has slowly appeared to be losing power and now won't turn on at all. I changed the batteries but still got no power so i unscrewed it thinking it would be quite basic and would probably be a loose wire or something.

Seems somewhere along the life of this thing it must have had some milk spilt on it as there was dried milk inside it.

The power button is positioned on the keyboard so i decided to strip it and give the keys and rubber push button thingy under the tap.
The membrane also has some dried milk on but i wasn't sure if i could wash it under the tap so i have just used a dry cloth to clean it off as best i can.

I have now found that a couple of the traces on the membrane of the keyboard have gone black and appeared to be corroded and just wiped away when i cleaned it with the cloth. One of these is the power trace and another is the letter X (all other keys and buttons work fine)

I followed them back to the connector and found the two points for the power and managed to get the thing to power up by touching the two points together with a wire so i'm sure i could somehow rig up a new power button but i was wondering about the X key.

I know its probably just going to be a LOT easier to just go and buy a new learning system or encourage her to use my computer with her sister and me but thought i'd ask if anyone knows of an easy cheap way of trying to repair the trace. I thought about one of those conductive pens and just redrawing the line on the sheet but wasn't sure if it would work on the acetate (is it acetate) sheet?

Sorry for the long post but it made my daughter upset and she thinks daddy can fix anything so don't want to disappoint her. Silly i know but hey

I would have tried the conductive pen option. Pretty sure that if they write on a circuit board then they'll write on a membrane. Another solution to replace the tracks might be to get some aluminium sticky tape and cut thin strips of it to make tracks. They sell it here in the £1 shop.

thecellartroll said:

I would have tried the conductive pen option. Pretty sure that if they write on a circuit board then they'll write on a membrane. Another solution to replace the tracks might be to get some aluminium sticky tape and cut thin strips of it to make tracks. They sell it here in the £1 shop.

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That would be my exact suggestions too buddy, got nothing to lose

Thanks guys, looking at the conductive pens they seem a little expensive (almost as much as buying a replacement barbie system) so i think i'll have a scout round for some of that aluminium tape and see what happens.

Oh, one other thing i wondered. When looking at the conductive pens i found there are nickel and silver versions.
What's the difference and which would be the recommended should i go for one?

Thanks again guys

Silver is more conductive I believe..

I've used a product called 'wire glue' on my boy's model train brushes with success.

Apply it with a pin or toothpick and leave to dry.

+1 for wire glue.

Id use the tape to make a new track + wire glue blob at each end to connect it to the existing connections.

Magno Boots said:

I've used a product called 'wire glue' on my boy's model train brushes with success.

Apply it with a pin or toothpick and leave to dry.

Click to expand...

Sounds interesting, never heard of that. Any links to the manufacturer's site or any details for that matter please..

TC

You can make your own conductive ink.

Some quantity of graphite powder mixed with half glass of clear nail varnish mixed up and it's done.

@TheCorfiot

Here's a little more info..

http://www.andersproducts.com/

The product itself has very little strength but can be brushed over with superglue once the connection is made.