canned air on keyboard

[ashat]

Just to know:
canned air can be used without any risk to polish the keyboard, (without disassembling it) and the ultranav?

A.

[sjthinkpader]

That depends on whether it is Italian air, German air, or French air inside.

[ashat]

That depends on whether it is Italian air, German air, or French air inside.

it should be "roman sunny air"

A.

[sjthinkpader]

Good for you. If there are italian bread under the KB, then by all means use Roman air. I personally use America alcohol wipes to clean Lay's chips grease from key tops.

[BruisedQuasar]

An aside about air cleaning. I stopped throwing away money on canned air a few years ago. I used to be a 35mm camera buff. It occurred to me one day that we cleaned our lenses and cameras of dust just fine with a small rubber bellows that had a small brush on the end. I got out one and tried it out on a keyboard. Worked better than blowing off parts and cost nothing. Later I came across a larger squeeze bulb specially made for generating pressured air to clean electronic parts. It has a metal lined one way intake valve on the bulb end to let in & collect more air. Works great!

I find it works best if used regularly before there is a build up. I never liked blasting my keyboard or other PC components anyway and I resented the $5 to $6 a can price. I considered rigging up a way to use air pistol CO2 tubes but decided on the gentler squeeze bulb method.
You can find the squeeze bulb air blowers now on eBay for under $5...

--Bruised

[killer]

@BruisedQuasar: That makes perfect sense. I have one of those old camera lens bellows brushes and will give it whirl to see how effective it is.

I tend not to eat much when using my Thinkpad but my wife can create crumbs by drinking a glass of water so may be I'll try it on her T43p keyboard first.

[sjthinkpader]

I feel the same with those canned air. I do have an air compressor for tires etc but never used it on KBs yet.

[BruisedQuasar]

I very briefly considered my air tank but ruled it out. I didn't like the excessive pressure of using canned air. I figured my 120lb air tank would blow off a key or two!

--Bruised

[Nick Y]

I have read about not using it, but actually sometimes I go over the keyboard with our vacuum cleaner. (Not recommended to others unless you know the suction power of the cleaner and the way the keys can come off; otherwise you need to know how to fit all the keys back on!...)

The other item I use, more frequently, is a spare (clean) 2cm paint brush.

[poshgeordie]

A good way of cleaning a keyboard out is to stand it on one end and use a toothbrush to gently brush under the keys and along the rows.

You wouldn't believe what comes out!

The best toothbrush to use is one belonging to someone you don't like since you can then put it back on the shelf afterwards....

[RealBlackStuff]

The best toothbrush to use is one belonging to someone you don't like since you can then put it back on the shelf afterwards....

Naughty, naughty

[BruisedQuasar]

I find the larger soft make-up brush that you can get easily in a Dollar store make-up "tool" kit works well for brushing away screen dust and stuff on the keyboard. The $1 kit I bought two years ago incuded two large brushes and three descending sizes smaller brushes. I brush off my KB and screen daily.

--Bruised