Dishwasher + Keyboard = ?

My keyboard at work has been getting too dirty, so I started thinking about how to clean it.

A colleague suggested that a dishwasher works fine, so I put it on the top shelf of the dishwasher with the plug wrapped in clingfilm and hit go on an “eco” wash which is slightly cooler.

I pulled it out before the trying was complete as I worried that the drying was warmer and might damage the plastic keyboard. It turns out that the dishwasher gave the keyboard a good soak, but still needed a good wipe with a cloth to actually get the dirt of the keys, so the dishwasher was not enough on it’s own.

As for drying – 2 days of drying left me with a keyboard that did not work. Dismantling and spreading out the layers of the membrane over an air vent for half a day did work, with the keyboard now working properly, and clean!

The keyboard rest did get a bit discoloured, so if you are cleaning your keyboard I suggest cleaning the keys by hand with a damp cloth (maybe with some washing up soap), and then popping off most of the keys to get in underneath them to get the dirt out from there.

The dishwasher didn’t really do much except add a long time to the drying stage