1. There are seven screws holding the keyboard together. Unscrew and secure them.
2. The keyboard is snapped together so I used a small screwdriver to separate the bottom and top pieces.
3. When it opens up you will need to unplug the connecting cable from a small circuit board to which it is attached. Gently as the pins look fragile.

1. In my case I limited myself to checking the keyboard on the left-hand side of the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. The keyboard is divided in three sections that are secured by metallic plates. These are held down by several small screws. Between the left side and the center plates is a small green circuit board to which the keyboard plug is attached. I remove all the small screws and slid the metallic plate from under the small circuit board. There were couple of plugs which served as guides for the plates over which I just must maneuver the plate with my hand. This was no major task. It came out smoothly.
2. I pulled out several keys with key extractor that comes in the tool kit and visually inspected under the keys on top of the keyboard and looked directly underneath the key at the keyboard circuit which is etched on plastic. Everything looked ok. As a matter of fact the keyboard even seemed waterproof with all the protections that are built in.
3. But below the keys towards the hand-rest I notice that the plastic circuit board passed below the metallic plates and close to the bottom plastic casing. Upon close examination I notice discoloration on the circuits edged on the plastic circuit. My conclusion was that the drops had slid downwards and settled over the circuit causing them to rust and break the connection to the keys on the left side. A broken circuit. Had I opened up and dried the keyboard with a hair-blower when it got wet this corrosion could have been prevented.

Common sense told me that if the circuit was etched on plastic that there must be some product on the market that can trace those circuits. So I went down to Radio Shack to look around. There was nothing on the stands. My fortune was that I found an intelligent salesman with a good memory who pulled out a Tech American catalog (c898) flipped the pages and showed me a product called Circuit Writer Precision Conductive Ink Dispenser (cat #91-3890) for $9.95 plus shipping. The product applies instant traces on glass, metal, plastic and other surfaces. I ordered and in less than one week it had arrived.

I opened the keyboard and held the plastic circuit separated from the plastic covering with a small screwdriver jammed between them (there must be more elegant ways but what can you expect from an amateur?). The dispenser comes shaped like a marking pen. You shake it to mix the welding compound inside. The instructions suggested that you practice some traces before hitting the circuit. I went straight for the plastic. My traces were sloppy and I was concerned about the amount of trace material spilling out too wide and connecting separate circuits. I stopped for about 30 seconds to align well the traces...that was a mistake...the tracing material started to dry up on the tip of the pen and would not flow. Tried to get it rolling and no way. Finally I used a lot pressure on the pen to get it to spill some tracing compound and I used a pin to dip from the small pool of the compound I had created. With the pin I finished repairing the corroded circuits.

Waited several minutes till the tracing material dried and put everything back together.

I'm typing this using the repaired keyboard. It was almost a full success except for one key. That was the letter "z" (alt 122...that's how I just typed that z). If I type the "z" it does strange things like deleting the line being type. I guess I goofed on that section. I guess if you practice a bit and get good at drawing those fine circuit lines you probably may be able to do a better job than me. Or maybe you will decide like I did initially that it's cheaper to replace the keyboard than to invest time and some money in repairing. But if you like to tinker like I do you just might get a kick out of it.

Jaime Alvelo

Caguas, Puerto Rico