keyboards and dishwashers ...

I eat lunch over my keyboard (one of my less appealing habits). Every so often I have to invert it and shake the crap out and I've already written off one keyboard with my unsavory habits.

So I've always been interested in ways of keeping keyboards clean especially ones in public access labs that get kind of yucky after a year's greasy fingered students have done their worst.

Most cleaning solutions include expensive products plus the employment of cleaning staff to come round and do the cleaning. So given that most of the waste in a keyboard is skin, grease and food waste I've always wondered if you could run a keyboard through a dishwasher and then dry it off with some water displacement chemical, eg WD40. Now someone at NPR's tried exactly that. And it does seem to work. Eevn if it probably invalidates the warranty and risks doing damage to the keyboard. But there seems to be all sorts of FUD about doing it. But then when a basic USB keyboard costs ten to fifteen bucks, whats the risk?

If your keybord works afterwards, you've saved $10. If it doesn't your no worse off than you were ...