RadioBanter - View Single Post

JoeSpareBedroom · December 13th 06, 05:58 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

"BDK" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
This may seem off topic for this newsgroup, but I figured I might find
people here who had disassembled devices that have keypads.

I've got a Panasonic cordless phone whose keypad has stopped working
unless
I press extremely hard on the buttons. I took the thing apart and found
that
the actual keypad is just sort of a plastic "mat" containing the buttons
I
push. It rests on top of a circuit board that has corresponding spots on
it
for each button (membrane switches?). The Panasonic web site lists a
replacement keypad, which is nothing but the plastic "mat". Although it's
cheap enough to try replacing that part, I'm wondering if these things
really go bad - maybe get fatigued or compressed over a couple of years.
Is
this fix likely to work?

Having fixed several scanners and SW radios with bad keypads, the number
one cause of a prematurely bad keypad is pounding the keys. A friend hit
the buttons on the one radio of his so hard he broke all the traces on
the PC board under it. I found a new keypad, but the PC board couldn't
be found, so out came the Cyano glue and the trace pen, and it's still
working years later.

He learned his lesson, and now his stuff lasts years and years, instead
of months.

BDK

Hmm. I think the keyword in my situation is "teenager". I'll prepare the
guillotine.