I am cleaning my UHK roughly every 8 - 12 weeks by removing all key caps blowing all dust and hair out and cleaning my key caps with soapwater and a sponge.
However on some of my key caps there is a tiny layer of dirt which I can scratch with my fingernail (and a lot of force) but will not go away by soapwater.
Here is a picture after the cleaning process with soapwater (for some reason this layer turns white after it)
As for cleaning the palm rest, I have a similar issue but I only used soapwater (no Isopropanol) and I guess I should follow this guide: Palm rest refurbishment guide - Ultimate Hacking Keyboard by polising it and add a new layer of lacquer.
However I was wondering what lacquer to use (or maybe some wood oil is better?) to get a more robust skin for my palm rests.
Lacquer is much more robust, but you loose the wooden feeling. I much prefer hard (wax) oils on all wooden surfaces in the house – especially when you touch the wood. You need to reapply the oil from time to time (every year or less, depending on the usage), but is not much work. The oiled wood looks and feels much nicer IMO. Another advantage is that dents and scratches can easier, often partially, be fixed. This is normally not an option with lacquer. Which oil to choose is a matter of preference. I have mostly used Leinos Hartwachsöl and recently tried Danish Oil. Not sure yet what I like better. They need to be applied differently although.
Hi,
1, Basically, when we use soft soap to clean the keycaps, this coating will not be removed. So using some engine oil or sticky lubricant (with soft fabric) to wipe the keycaps can probably make them look new again.
2, As for cleaning the palm rest, the manufacturer of the wooden parts suggests car spray: lacquer spray that is normally used for cars.
Oh, your photo reminds me the days I ruined mine…
I soaked them in a soap water for a few hours and washed with a water. That white residue came up. So I repeated the process and it got even more contrast. I tried a toothbrush. I used an IPA solution and an ultrasonic bath, but every time I washed the keys the white residue just got… whiter and brighter. As the last resort I tried some dental liquid in an ultrasonic bath, and after that (that was like 5th washing or even more) the keys got even worse.
I ordered a new set. Now I am not sure how to clean them, and the date approaches.
Thanks a lot for the pictures and warning.
For me, this is a quality problem and not even close to a “you-problem”.
I’m sixty years old by now, and mechanical keyboards are my obsession/fetish for thirty years.
I do own about 100 keycapsets of all given profiles and materials in existence, GMK, Signature Plastics (aka Pimpmykeyboard), Realforce, HHKB and on and on, and this shouldn’t happen at all with quality keycaps!
Being a member of all bigger (English/German speaking) communities of mks, I can’t even remember to have seen something like that before and this is something to have talked about with the manufacturer to avoid that, even more for the money asked for the keycapsets.
I’ve had a bad experience with my original keycapset too.
Support was topnotch, fast and generous!
Even though I do understand, small company, lower batches of production/keycaps asked, higher prices, the keycaps given are overpriced and don’t match the outstanding quality of the UHK at all!
In the meantime, we’ve tried to reproduce this issue with soap unsuccessfully, and we left the keycaps in soapy water for days.
We’ve talked to our supplier, and they said that this issue shouldn’t happen when using regular soap with a soft fabric. We think that the sponges used are too abrasive and damaged the keycaps.
Everyone affected, would you please try Nora’s earlier suggestion? :
Using some engine oil or sticky lubricant (with soft fabric) to wipe the keycaps can probably make them look new again.
I have cleaned my original keycaps from the first production run (smooth plastic without the grippy texture) by soaking them in dish soap for a few hours, rinsing thoroughly in a colander (spaghetti strainer), towelling them mostly dry with a dish towel, putting them into a mesh bag, and blow-drying them with the same blower I use to clean the hair/dust away. I have not had this problem after many cleanings.
Do you have the newer textured keycaps? Thanks for the warning.
I ran into this same problem yesterday after I washed my UHK60v2 keycaps along with another set of keycaps from another keyboard using denture cleaning tabs. After the first round of cleaning some of the keycaps got this white powdery coating. It was uneven and blotchy and wasn’t present on all keycaps so I thought that maybe I didn’t soak them long enough or the other something dissolved from the other set and got stuck on UHK caps and I just didn’t rinse them properly.
Second time around I only washed the UHK keycaps. The other set seemed fine and clean and even if they needed another round I would’ve washed them separately. This time I let them soak overnight, thoroughly rinsed them and set them on a towel to dry. And when they started drying the same coating started to appear, this time on more keys and even more prominent than first time around. Attached some pictures I took after the keycaps had dried a bit after the second washing.
About the suggestion. I really need to ask: are you serious? Because using engine oil on your keycaps sounds like one of those “advices” around the internet, like “use acetone to clean some plastic parts” or “if your phone gets wet just put it in a microwave for a few minutes”.
And if you are serious, then what kind of engine oil? There are like a million different kinds and since I don’t have a car, a scooter, a lawn mover, or anything else that runs using an internal combustion engine I don’t have any engine oil lying around. I also don’t know what you mean by sticky lubricant. And isn’t using any oil or lubricant counter productive when trying to clean the keycaps?
Besides being vexed about this, I’m a bit disappointed. The built quality on my UHK60v2 and all the accessories (palm rests, modules, riser) have been top notch. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the PBT keycaps wouldn’t tolerate being cleaned with denture tabs. It seems to be the most common way of cleaning keycaps of mechanical keyboards, even more popular than using dish/hand soap in warm water.
In terms of “engine oil” I used just standard WD-40 which did the trick.
However I replaced my keycaps with keycaps from Custom Keycaps and I am using it for some month and I did not encounter any “white coating” issue at all.
I tried both WD-40 and vegetable oil. WD-40 didn’t really help; it seemed to do something but the few keycaps I tried would stay stained after they dried up. Vegetable oil helped a bit; the caps didn’t become good as new but at least somewhat presentable but only after a vigorous rubbing with bot oily and clean cloth. I’ll let the caps rest a while before taking pictures to see if the staining comes back after drying like with WD-40.
If someone has suggestions on how to get these really clean without having to polish them like
they’re the crown jewels I’m all ears.
Scale from the water is probably it. These are the caps from my Dec 7, 2020 UHK v2, order #8374. I soaked for 10min in tap water and dish soap and got the white coating even after scrubbing with a microfiber cloth. After realizing it could be mineral buildup from the water, I soaked a microfiber cloth with 5% acidity vinegar and scrubbed each key, and here are the results.
They look even better in person. Conclusion: only soak in distilled water!
Yes, distilled water would probably solve this.
I think the issue why this might be happening is the rough surface of the keycaps, I think that helps with scale building up.
