Unconventional 'repair' for the square plunger type keyboards

[falter]

Not exactly recommended but what I've discovered by accident trying to fix this Poly keyboard.. if you use pliers the bend the plastic sides that have split outwards back in (requires quite a bit of force and time), and then break off one piece near the corner, they work again without binding, and the key stems still have enough grip to not fall out.

I discovered this by accident after trying various glues. The tensile strength of the broken plastic is just too strong and will break after seriousbuse and the glue itself can become something that binds on the key socket. I'm not sure if breaking the corner really has anything to do with anything but just doing one or the other doesn't seem to work.

I'm doing this with spare plungers from an old Hazeltine keyboard. I can't think of a better way, unless someone comes up with new replacements... (Sara? )

 

[falter]

Yeah actually, it seems like it's more just the bending that helps, although on really bad ones removing a small corner piece helps relieve the tension. I've got a pair of pliers that have a 90 degree bend at the end, and they seem to do a good job of grabbing the offending plastic and being able to 'deform' it back into shape. I've now restored the entire row of number keys on this Poly keyboard doing that.

 

[falter]

Keyboard is fully working!

Now i just gotta figure out how to use this thing. I guess I can't do much with this machine since I only have whatever RAM is on the CPU card.