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Rubber contact

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:49 pm
by Marineau
Hi,

Scuse me for my English, I’m french !

I have a problem with my remote URC6800. A contact on button [Menu] and others are bad between a black rubber pad and a circuit board.

I tried to mesure a ohm value on this black rubber with an ohmmeter, but a value is nil. With all others buttons I obtain a value between 10K and 20K.

Do you know a method for clean this Black rubber contact ?
I tried with Alcohol or other but don’t work.

Maybe install a little aluminum foil on this rubber with a glue ?

If any have a solution, tell me ?

Thank
Normand

Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 2:07 pm
by The Robman

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:24 pm
by MaximusPlank
The Robman wrote:How about this: CircuitWorks® Rubber Keypad Repair Kit
It's too bad that the cost exceeds the cost of many remotes. It couldn't possibly really cost that much to market that stuff. I wonder who buys it? It's sad that such a handy product is in the hands of amateur business people. Very poor marketing... with absolutely no insight or confidence in the demand. If it was priced more reasonably I think they could sell millions of units and the volume would make up for the few bucks lost in individual unit profit.

I have often thought I could take some copper pipe to the bench grinder to get a few teaspoons of powder and then experiment with different adhesives. The one in the above link probably uses common epoxy. I've tried tinfoil in the 3 hole paper punchers and then super-gluing the "dots" on but it lasted only a month or two. Super glue is very brittle. I did notice with the tinfoil it made for some super sensitive buttons! Maybe some sort of epoxy with the foil dots would work.

The web site http://www.thistothat.com/ suggests "household Goop" for metal to rubber or just plain ol' silicone sealer. One of these days...

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 7:32 am
by The Robman
MaximusPlank wrote:It's too bad that the cost exceeds the cost of many remotes.
I need to find out where you buy remote remotes! That stuff costs just $10 and it good for thousands of repairs. I'm curious, at what price would it become viable for you to repair your $30 remote?

Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 8:47 am
by MaximusPlank
The Robman wrote:
MaximusPlank wrote:It's too bad that the cost exceeds the cost of many remotes.
I need to find out where you buy remote remotes! That stuff costs just $10 and it good for thousands of repairs. I'm curious, at what price would it become viable for you to repair your $30 remote?
Maybe I misunderstood the ad. The way I read it, once you open up the container you have 72 hours to use it. Now that I've seen your response it made me think again and probably you don't have to mix the whole kit at once. Silly me! :oops: Thanks for the clarification. Now that I know that, I definitely make it a part of my tool collection.

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 8:28 am
by jherrick
Wasn't there mention once of the rear window defroster repair kit that is available at most auto parts stores? Somewhere a while back I know you were recommending that, Rob. I don't know if the price is any better, but maybe it is more accessible.

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 9:16 am
by The Robman
The rear window stuff is a little cheaper (usually around $7 or $8) but the reports I hear say that it will flake off eventually.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:50 pm
by Jobius
MaximusPlank wrote:Maybe I misunderstood the ad. The way I read it, once you open up the container you have 72 hours to use it. Now that I've seen your response it made me think again and probably you don't have to mix the whole kit at once. Silly me! :oops: Thanks for the clarification. Now that I know that, I definitely make it a part of my tool collection.
I just used this stuff to repair a couple of old 15-1994s that had some bad keys. I'm quite pleased with the results, but I don't think you can get "thousands of repairs" out of it. The "B" ingredient is a liquid that you only get a few drops of, and the instructions warn you not to mix less than the full kit. Has anyone here tried to?

Joe

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 6:10 pm
by underquark
For UK viewers, Maplin Electronics do some conducting paint for £6.99 (about 12½ dollars):
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Mod ... doy=search

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 7:10 pm
by zaphod7501
I have done some surgical transplants of the pads themselves from dead/useless remote pads to the worn out pad; slicing the bad one off and epoxying (or rtv glue) a good dot from the salvage remote. One dead remote can repair dozens of pads. (but in my business I have a LOT of dead/useless remotes)

Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:24 am
by sfhub
If you just have one or 2 buttons, I usually can fix the problem with a small piece of aluminum foil folded up to proper thickness. Works great for the "select" button which commonly wears out. If you have a lot of buttons to fix, it is harder to use this solution.

Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 5:25 pm
by Jobius
Maybe I'm just too hard on my 15-1994s, but the CircuitWorks stuff failed to live up to its claim of being a "permanent" repair.

I found another repair product called CaiKote 44. It only cost $5.99 at my local Fry's Electronics, and the package says it has a 1-year shelf-life after opening. That's a lot better than the 72-hours for the CircuitWorks stuff. I've had it about two weeks so far, and just used it to touch up a button that I hadn't hit the first time through. So far so good, but only time and use will tell how permanent it is.